GeForce GT 230 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which features core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (285%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 249600 (650%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 1136%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 100000 (1136%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (approximately 518%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GT 230, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (518%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.