GeForce GTS 150 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications 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 bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTS 150 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (380%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be a lot (approximately 44%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20640 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be much (more or less 130%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 150, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (130%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.