GeForce GTX 660 Ti vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator 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 R9 290		9876 points
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		6013 points
	Difference: 3863 (64%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 290 should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
	Difference: 176000 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be a lot (approximately 25%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25520 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (approximately 133%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29240 (133%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.