GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 179200 (165%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (about 249%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 77600 (249%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 31%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (31%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.