GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific card. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 290X in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 614298 (192%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB will be quite a bit (approximately 151%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 212000 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is much (about 176%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290X, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 89920 (176%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.