GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 2G, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1425 MHz on this model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380 2G		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380 2G, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 40704 (29%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G should be a lot (about 126%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60480 (126%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 2G is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 2G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11776 (61%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.