GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which has a core clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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

Radeon R9 390X 8G		13555 points
GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
	Difference: 2688 (25%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		330 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
	Difference: 68 (26%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		32 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
	Difference: 13 (68%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 390X 8G, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160000 (71%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be quite a bit (about 69%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75600 (69%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel fill rate, so in theory they should perform equally good at at FSAA, and be able to handle the same resolutions. (explain)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.