GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 be 125% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is much (more or less 42%) better at AF 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 (approximately 42%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 max fill rate.