GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features 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 260		182 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 176112 (157%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be much (about 195%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71936 (195%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a lot (more or less 69%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11072 (69%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.