GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 53 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160000 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (more or less 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32000 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (more or less 42%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (42%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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