GeForce GTX 1050 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050		75 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 1050 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050		114688 MB/sec
	Difference: 38912 (34%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is quite a bit (approximately 26%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 1050. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050		54160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13840 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 will be quite a bit (about 59%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050		43328 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16128 (59%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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