Radeon R7 M260 vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290X, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2816 SPUs, 176 Texture Address Units, 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 290X		10609 points
Radeon R7 M260		1120 points
	Difference: 9489 (847%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 290X should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 304000 (1900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be quite a bit (approximately 721%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 123640 (721%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be much (approximately 795%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 M260, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45480 (795%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.