GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X will be 29% faster than the GeForce GTX 980 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is much (approximately 32%) better at AF 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 should be much (about 165%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R9 280X, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.