Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
Geforce GTX 670		7351 points
	Difference: 1535 (21%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
Geforce GTX 670		13 Mh/s
	Difference: 8 (62%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Geforce GTX 670		170 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should be 50% quicker than the Geforce GTX 670 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a little bit (more or less 6%) faster with regards to AF than the Geforce GTX 670. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6320 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2080 (8%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video 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 number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.