GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1400 MHz on this model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
Radeon R9 270		5943 points
	Difference: 737 (12%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 215 Watts (143%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 590 should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon R9 270 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 149120 (83%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a little bit (approximately 8%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 270. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5696 (8%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 will be a lot (approximately 102%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 270, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29472 (102%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.