GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290X, which has core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2816 SPUs along with 176 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 290X should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 233984 (272%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be much (approximately 111%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73984 (111%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be much (about 53%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17792 (53%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.