GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1425 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380X		190 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 380X should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9800 GX2 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X will be quite a bit (approximately 62%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47360 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be much (more or less 62%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11840 (62%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.