Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 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

Radeon R9 290		9876 points
Geforce GTX 670		7351 points
	Difference: 2525 (34%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290		29 Mh/s
Geforce GTX 670		13 Mh/s
	Difference: 16 (123%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (76%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290 should in theory perform much faster than the Geforce GTX 670 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit (about 25%) faster with regards to AF than the Geforce GTX 670. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25520 (25%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21920 (75%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.