GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X is 25% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GTX overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 17600 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a small bit (about 17%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.