GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which features GPU core speed of 933 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (138%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 182400 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (more or less 211%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70896 (211%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (approximately 211%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20256 (211%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.