GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features GPU clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X is 50% faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 95616 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (approximately 120%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59392 (120%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (more or less 36%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (36%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.