GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which has core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 460		2557 points
	Difference: 6329 (248%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

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

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 201600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (about 188%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11000 (68%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.