GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 270, which features a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1400 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation 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

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
Radeon R9 270		5943 points
	Difference: 737 (12%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 215 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 270 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 149120 (83%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a small bit (more or less 8%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R9 270. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5696 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit (about 102%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 270, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29472 (102%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of 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.