GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 290X, which has core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 290X		10609 points
GeForce GTX 860M		4340 points
	Difference: 6269 (144%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 255 Watts (567%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290X should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GTX 860M overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 256000 (400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be a lot (about 84%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 860M. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64288 (84%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be much (about 302%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 860M, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 38448 (302%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.