GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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 470		2937 points
	Difference: 5949 (203%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 154080 (115%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be much (about 220%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 74808 (220%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be just a bit (more or less 12%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 470, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2920 (12%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.