GeForce GT 210 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also uses 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 210		31 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 219 Watts (706%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GT 210 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 210		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 275200 (2150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a lot (about 2209%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 210. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 210		4712 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 104088 (2209%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (approximately 1054%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 210, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 210		2356 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24844 (1054%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the graphics card can 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.