GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this card. It features 2816 SPUs along with 176 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon R9 290X in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 614298 (192%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should be much (approximately 151%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 212000 (151%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should be quite a bit (about 176%) better at AA than the Radeon R9 290X, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 89920 (176%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.