Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 295X2, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1018 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

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

Radeon R9 295X2		21205 points
Radeon R9 290		9876 points
	Difference: 11329 (115%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
Radeon R9 295X2		500 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 295X2 should be 100% quicker than the Radeon R9 290 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 320000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 is a lot (more or less 180%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 230336 (180%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 will be much (approximately 155%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R9 290, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 79104 (155%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.