GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280, which comes with core speeds of 933 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1792 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 465 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
	Difference: 137408 (134%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (approximately 291%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 465. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 77788 (291%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be much (more or less 54%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 465, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10432 (54%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at 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 graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.