GeForce RTX 3060 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (76%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 should be just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 290 in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48640 (15%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 should be a small bit (more or less 16%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19840 (16%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 should be a lot (about 24%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12160 (24%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated 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 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.