GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270X, which has a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1400 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (211%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is quite a bit (about 138%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46400 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.