GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (144%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 25% quicker than the Radeon R9 M290X overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38784 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be a lot (approximately 38%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18592 (38%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (approximately 36%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (36%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.