GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M395X, which features a core clock speed of 723 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 11% quicker than the Radeon R9 M395X in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 17408 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is a lot (approximately 120%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50544 (120%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10464 (45%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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