GeForce GTX 280 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M295X, which comes with core speeds of 750 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 111 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M295X should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 280 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 34304 (24%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X is a lot (about 99%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47840 (99%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M295X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4736 (25%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.