Radeon R9 270X vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 270X should in theory be a little bit better than the Radeon R9 M290X in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be just a bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12000 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be a bit (approximately 18%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R9 M290X, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (18%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.