GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which comes with core speeds of 970 MHz on the GPU, and 1425 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 7 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 380 4G is 43% faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 54400 (43%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be quite a bit (more or less 41%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GX2. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31840 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 4G is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11840 (62%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.