GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M280X should theoretically be much superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (53%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is much (about 50%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X will be a lot (more or less 50%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.