GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 290, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 290 should theoretically be much superior to 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 much (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

The Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit (more or less 1085%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 320, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.