GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be 103% quicker than the GeForce GTX 280 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 146304 (103%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (approximately 126%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60640 (126%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is superior to the GeForce GTX 280, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (41%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.