GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		350 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should be 224% quicker than the Radeon R9 280X in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		934298 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
	Difference: 646298 (224%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should be quite a bit (more or less 224%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		352800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 244000 (224%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB is much (about 419%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R9 280X, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB		141120 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 113920 (419%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.