GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1375 MHz on this card. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 870M is 9% faster than the Radeon R9 M280X in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a lot (about 109%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M280X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54992 (109%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be much (approximately 57%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R9 M280X, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8184 (57%)

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 transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.