GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 150 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 16% quicker than the Radeon R9 M290X overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 23808 (16%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be quite a bit (more or less 62%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26000 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be much (more or less 24%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon R9 M290X, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (24%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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