In terms of overall gaming performance, the graphical capabilities of the AMD Radeon RX 480X 8GB are very slightly better than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Palit JetStream 4GB Edition.

The RX 480X has a 124 MHz higher core clock speed and the same number of Texture Mapping Units as the GTX 980. This results in the RX 480X providing 15.9 GTexel/s better texturing performance. This still holds weight but shader performance is generally more relevant, particularly since both of these GPUs support at least DirectX 10.

The RX 480X has a 124 MHz higher core clock speed than the GTX 980 and the same number of Render Output Units. This results in the RX 480X providing 7.9 GPixel/s better pixeling performance. However, both GPUs support DirectX 9 or above, and pixeling performance is only really relevant when comparing older cards.

The RX 480X was released over a year more recently than the GTX 980, and so the RX 480X is likely to have better driver support, meaning it will be more optimized for running the latest games when compared to the GTX 980.

Both GPUs exhibit very powerful performance, so it probably isn't worth upgrading from one to the other, as both are capable of running even the most demanding games at the highest settings.

The RX 480X has 4096 MB more video memory than the GTX 980, so is likely to be much better at displaying game textures at higher resolutions. However, overall, the GTX 980 has superior memory performance.

The GTX 980 has 224.4 GB/sec greater memory bandwidth than the RX 480X, which means that the memory performance of the GTX 980 is massively better than the RX 480X.

Both the Radeon RX 480X 8GB and the GeForce GTX 980 Palit JetStream 4GB Edition have 2048 Shader Processing Units. While the two GPUs have the same number of SPUs, the actual performance delivered by the GTX 980 is 3362 and by the RX 480X is 3362. Knowing that the shader performance of the GTX 980 is superior, it is not necessary to examine the GPUs' respective Texture and Pixel Fill Rates.

The RX 480X transistor size technology is 14 nm (nanometers) smaller than the GTX 980. This means that the RX 480X is expected to run slightly cooler and achieve higher clock frequencies than the GTX 980.

The Radeon RX 480X 8GB requires 150 Watts to run and the GeForce GTX 980 Palit JetStream 4GB Edition requires 180 Watts. We would recommend a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the RX 480X and a PSU with at least 500 Watts for the GTX 980. The GTX 980 requires 30 Watts more than the RX 480X to run. The difference is not significant enough for the GTX 980 to have a noticeably larger impact on your yearly electricity bills than the RX 480X.