GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M290X should theoretically be just a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 560 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 25472 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be much (about 50%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22640 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is a bit (more or less 5%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 560, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1280 (5%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.