GeForce 940M vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 940M in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 940M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (860%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (about 164%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 940M. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 940M		25728 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42272 (164%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 940M		8576 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18624 (217%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.