GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare all that 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 is set to run at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X should be 244% quicker than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 62400 (244%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (about 473%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41600 (473%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10000 (227%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.