GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1375 MHz on this card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

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

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
	Difference: 20800 (24%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (about 62%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (44%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the 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 bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.