GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which comes with GPU clock 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 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 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon R9 M290X overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 43008 (28%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is a lot (about 59%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40432 (59%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is quite a bit (about 166%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45088 (166%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.