GeForce GTX 860M vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M275X should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 860M in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be quite a bit (about 113%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R9 M275X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40512 (113%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X is a little bit (approximately 13%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 860M, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1648 (13%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.