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GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

The GeForce GTX 280 uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 1107 MHz on this specific model. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960 120 Watts
GeForce GTX 280 236 Watts
Difference: 116 Watts (97%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280 141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960 112000 MB/sec
Difference: 29696 (27%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be quite a bit (more or less 50%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960 72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280 48160 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 23968 (50%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is superior to the GeForce GTX 280, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960 36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280 19264 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 16800 (87%)

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

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GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 960

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 280 GeForce GTX 960
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year June 17, 2008 January 2015
Code Name G200 GM206
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 602 MHz 1127 MHz
Memory Speed 2214 MHz 7000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 236 watts 120 watts
Bandwidth 141696 MB/sec 112000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 48160 Mtexels/sec 72128 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19264 Mpixels/sec 36064 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 240 1024
Texture Mapping Units 80 64
Render Output Units 32 32
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 512-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 28 nm
Transistors 1400 million 2940 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 12.0
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 280

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 960

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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