GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M275X, which has a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 147 Watts (294%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 78% faster than the Radeon R9 M275X overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 56000 (78%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is quite a bit (about 113%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M275X. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40800 (113%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (about 33%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R9 M275X, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (33%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.