Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon RX 5700 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 5700 XT, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1605 MHz, and 8096 MB of GDDR6 RAM set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 5700 XT		225 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 5700 XT should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon R9 290 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 5700 XT		458752 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 138752 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 5700 XT is much (more or less 101%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon RX 5700 XT		256800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 128800 (101%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon RX 5700 XT is superior to the Radeon R9 290, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 5700 XT		102720 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51520 (101%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.