GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2560 Stream Processors, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 204800 (178%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is quite a bit (about 239%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90200 (239%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is quite a bit (approximately 137%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29600 (137%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.