GeForce GTX 295 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (16%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 295 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
	Difference: 64224 (29%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be just a bit (more or less 18%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 295. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16640 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 will be a small bit (more or less 19%) better at AA than the Radeon R9 280X, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5056 (19%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock 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 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.