GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 290		9876 points
GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
	Difference: 6939 (236%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 186080 (139%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is quite a bit (approximately 277%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94008 (277%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is much (about 111%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 470, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26920 (111%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.