GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which comes with core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is a lot (approximately 673%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59200 (673%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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