GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 93 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 272112 (243%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be much (about 401%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 147936 (401%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should be a lot (about 317%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 260, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51072 (317%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.