GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with core clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 280 should in theory be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 7776 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a lot (about 42%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14168 (42%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the GeForce GTX 280, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5016 (26%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.