GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which features a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also features a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 390 8G will be 171% faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 242304 (171%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G should be much (about 232%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111840 (232%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G should be quite a bit (approximately 232%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 280, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44736 (232%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range 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 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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