GeForce GTX 980 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 makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 980		13552 points
Radeon R9 290		9876 points
	Difference: 3676 (37%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290		29 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 9 (45%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
Radeon R9 290		283 Sol/s
	Difference: 125 (44%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 135 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 980 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be just a bit (approximately 13%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16128 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be much (about 41%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R9 290, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20864 (41%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high resolutions.

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

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