GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1425 MHz on this model. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 380 4G, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 40704 (29%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G is much (approximately 126%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60480 (126%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 4G is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11776 (61%)

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 transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.