GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 648 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1242 MHz on this model. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which features a clock frequency of 970 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1425 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can 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 the card's clock speed. 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.