GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 57 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 128320 (508%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be much (about 425%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55040 (425%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22880 (530%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.