GeForce RTX 3090 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which has core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
GeForce RTX 3090		350 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce RTX 3090 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R9 280X overall. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3090		958668 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
	Difference: 670668 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3090 will be a lot (about 321%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3090		457560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 348760 (321%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3090 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3090		156240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 129040 (474%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.