GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M290X should theoretically be a lot superior to 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 is much (about 425%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be much (about 530%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 320, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.