GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 172800 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a lot (about 188%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71000 (188%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (26%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.