GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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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

Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 5236 (143%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 280X should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 480 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 110592 (62%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a lot (about 159%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66800 (159%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the Radeon R9 280X, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.