GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which has a clock frequency of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1250 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 GTS 450		1453 points
	Difference: 6508 (448%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 182272 (316%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 will be much (approximately 317%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 79440 (317%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be a lot (about 138%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17328 (138%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many 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.