GeForce 8800 GS vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GS		105 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 280X should be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GS overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 249600 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be much (more or less 312%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GS. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 82400 (312%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GS		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20600 (312%)

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 (measured 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 the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.