GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set 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 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M280X should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be a little bit (approximately 7%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3168 (7%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (approximately 22%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2592 (22%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.