GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also 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 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be a lot (more or less 673%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (673%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (518%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.