GeForce GTX 1080 vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare those specs 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

Hide Graphs

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

GeForce GTX 1080		21942 points
Radeon R9 290X		10609 points
	Difference: 11333 (107%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1080		553 Sol/s
Radeon R9 290X		369 Sol/s
	Difference: 184 (50%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290X		29 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 1080		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 9 (45%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1080 should be 2% faster than the Radeon R9 290X in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 7680 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 should be a lot (about 83%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 290X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 116320 (83%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 is a lot (approximately 101%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 290X, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51648 (101%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.