GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 60 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 35712 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be just a bit (about 15%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6160 (15%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 will be quite a bit (about 74%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 280, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14336 (74%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.