Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 290X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 2816 SPUs along with 176 Texture Address Units and 64 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

Radeon R9 290X		10609 points
Radeon R9 290		9876 points
	Difference: 733 (7%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290X		369 Sol/s
Radeon R9 290		283 Sol/s
	Difference: 86 (30%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290		29 Mh/s
Radeon R9 290X		29 Mh/s
	Difference: 0 (0%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be just a bit (approximately 10%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (10%)

Pixel Rate

Both cards have the exact same pixel rate, so theoretically they should be equally good at at anti-aliasing, and be capable of handling the same screen resolutions. (explain)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.