GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which has a core clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2816 SPUs, 176 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 326272 (565%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is quite a bit (approximately 638%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 159744 (638%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be much (approximately 436%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 54672 (436%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.