GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation 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

GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
	Difference: 1981 (22%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		294 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
	Difference: 32 (12%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
	Difference: 2 (11%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be 29% faster than the GeForce GTX 970 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a little bit (approximately 0%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 400 (0%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (approximately 147%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (147%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.