GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which comes with core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator 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

Radeon R9 290		9876 points
GeForce GTX 965M		5650 points
	Difference: 4226 (75%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 240 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 290 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 965M overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256000 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is a lot (approximately 112%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 965M. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67584 (112%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be much (more or less 69%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 965M, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20992 (69%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.