GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1400 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 270X will be 211% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (211%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be a lot (approximately 138%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46400 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (233%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.