GeForce GTX 275 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 speed 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 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 275 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
	Difference: 160992 (127%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (about 115%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 275. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58160 (115%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is superior to the GeForce GTX 275, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9476 (53%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.