GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 607 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 837 MHz on this model. It features 448 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 7776 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 is much (approximately 42%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14168 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be quite a bit (approximately 26%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 280, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5016 (26%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 most pixels the graphics 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 number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.