GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 257 Watts (598%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should be much faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 294720 (1166%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (about 888%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 115040 (888%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46880 (1085%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.