GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 198 Watts (381%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 262720 (1039%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (more or less 988%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 98800 (988%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (approximately 444%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 315, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22200 (444%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.