GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (144%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 25% faster than the Radeon R9 M290X in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38784 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (about 38%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18592 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (36%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.