GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit 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 980		13552 points
Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
	Difference: 4666 (53%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (5%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280X		294 Sol/s
	Difference: 114 (39%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 980 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (more or less 32%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35328 (32%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (approximately 165%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44864 (165%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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 reach the max fill rate.