Radeon HD 7870 XT vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (85%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 XT will be 25% quicker than the Radeon R9 M290X overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT will be quite a bit (more or less 31%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is just a bit (about 9%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon R9 M290X, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (9%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.