Geforce GTX 680 vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 933 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 280		7961 points
Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
	Difference: 311 (4%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
Geforce GTX 680		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 6 (38%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280 should theoretically be much superior to the Geforce GTX 680 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
	Difference: 47744 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be much (more or less 23%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24272 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2336 (8%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.