Radeon R7 250 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should perform much faster 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 should be a lot (approximately 353%) more effective at 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 much (approximately 240%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon R7 250, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.