GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon R9 280X overall. (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 is a lot (more or less 224%) more effective at AF 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 quite a bit (about 419%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.