Radeon R7 250 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
Radeon R7 250		1836 points
	Difference: 7050 (384%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (285%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon R7 250 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 214400 (291%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (approximately 353%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 84800 (353%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (about 240%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon R7 250, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (240%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.