GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 111 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M395X should in theory be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 18304 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X should be quite a bit (more or less 92%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44384 (92%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M395X is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3872 (20%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.