GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M380, which features a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon R9 M380 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 37920 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be a little bit (approximately 18%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6008 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot (approximately 52%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M380, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8280 (52%)

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 across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.