GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon RX 480

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 480, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1120 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 2000 MHz on this model. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 144 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 980		13552 points
Radeon RX 480		13349 points
	Difference: 203 (2%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 480		27 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 7 (35%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
Radeon RX 480		280 Sol/s
	Difference: 128 (46%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 480 should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 980 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		262144 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38144 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 is a little bit (approximately 12%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 980. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17152 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480		35840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36224 (101%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.