GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1200 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		40 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 147200 (2300%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (more or less 3678%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM). (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		1800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66200 (3678%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is a lot (about 2922%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM), and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26300 (2922%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.