GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has a core clock frequency of 607 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 837 MHz. It also makes use of a 320-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 448 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 280 is 6% quicker than the GeForce GTX 470 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 7776 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be much (about 42%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14168 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be a lot (about 26%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 280, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5016 (26%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.