GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 81024 (51%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (about 102%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52656 (102%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9120 (44%)

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 max amount of information (measured in 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. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount 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 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.