GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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 290		9876 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 5106 (107%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 190 Watts (173%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (233%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be much (more or less 21%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22608 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (approximately 127%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28616 (127%)

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 moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.