GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 380 2G

Intro

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

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

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 380 2G should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 280 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 2G is a lot (more or less 126%) faster with regards to AF 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 running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 2G is the winner, and very much so. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.