GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M380, which has a clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M380 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (114%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be a small bit (about 19%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be quite a bit (approximately 67%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6400 (67%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.