GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 380X, which comes with GPU core speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380X		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 380X should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 285 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 23424 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be quite a bit (more or less 140%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72320 (140%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10304 (50%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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