GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M290X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (243%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is quite a bit (more or less 102%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34400 (102%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17600 (183%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.