GeForce RTX 3060 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with GPU clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce RTX 3060 should be much faster than the Radeon R9 280X overall. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80640 (28%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 should be quite a bit (approximately 36%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39040 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 is quite a bit (about 133%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon R9 280X, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36160 (133%)

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 moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 in one second.

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