GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 172800 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (more or less 188%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71000 (188%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (approximately 26%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.