GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon R9 290

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 225 Watts (300%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 should be 272% quicker than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 233984 (272%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 will be a lot (more or less 92%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61184 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit (more or less 53%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17792 (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.