GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 M280X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
	Difference: 10496 (12%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is much (more or less 75%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti will be much (more or less 50%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M280X, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.