GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1200 MHz on this specific model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (45%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon R9 M290X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is much (approximately 61%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41200 (61%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a lot (approximately 147%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (147%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.