GeForce GTX 275 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, 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 275		219 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 275 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
	Difference: 26592 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (about 34%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 275. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17360 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be much (approximately 53%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 275, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9476 (53%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.