GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this particular card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (119%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be a bit better than the GeForce GTX 570 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (1%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X should be a lot (approximately 55%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24080 (55%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the Radeon R9 M290X, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2080 (8%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.