GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon R9 M290X overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 43008 (28%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (about 59%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40432 (59%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (approximately 166%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45088 (166%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.