Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 580, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1257 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 2000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation 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 RX 580		13630 points
Radeon R9 290		9876 points
	Difference: 3754 (38%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		315 Sol/s
Radeon R9 290		283 Sol/s
	Difference: 32 (11%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290		29 Mh/s
Radeon RX 580		28 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (4%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 580		185 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (62%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 290 should be 22% quicker than the Radeon RX 580 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
	Difference: 57856 (22%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 is much (more or less 41%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53008 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10976 (27%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 per second.

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