GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M280X should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be much (more or less 33%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12600 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 should be a little bit (about 13%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M280X, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (13%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.