GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, 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 GTS 450		1453 points
	Difference: 7433 (512%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X will be 399% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 230272 (399%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (approximately 334%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83744 (334%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14672 (117%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.