GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
Radeon R9 270X		6590 points
	Difference: 90 (1%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (103%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 will be 83% faster than the Radeon R9 270X overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 149120 (83%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a small bit (more or less 3%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 590. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2304 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit (about 82%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 270X, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26272 (82%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.