GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which features a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is 12% faster than the Radeon R9 M280X in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
	Difference: 10496 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be much (approximately 75%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (75%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (50%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This figure is calculated 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 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 can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.