GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 970 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1425 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380X		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
	Difference: 12 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 380X should be 63% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 70512 (63%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is a lot (approximately 199%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 82688 (199%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is much (about 92%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14912 (92%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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