GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (104%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 285 1GB will be 4% quicker than the Radeon R9 M290X in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 5376 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (about 31%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16160 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6464 (31%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.