GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 M260X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 M260X will be 11% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be a lot (more or less 70%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 M260X. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13800 (70%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be a lot (more or less 45%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 M260X, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (45%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.