GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which has GPU clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2560 Stream Processors, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 390 8G will be 171% quicker than the GeForce GTX 280 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 242304 (171%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is much (approximately 232%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111840 (232%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390 8G is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44736 (232%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.