GeForce GTX 880M vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 Stream Processors, 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 880M		130 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 880M overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 880M		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M should be much (more or less 80%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		122112 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54112 (80%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 880M is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		30528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3328 (12%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.