Radeon HD 7870 XT vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this particular card. 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 HD 7870 XT		6390 points
	Difference: 2496 (39%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
Radeon HD 7870 XT		15 Mh/s
	Difference: 6 (40%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 7870 XT overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96000 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be much (more or less 23%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7870 XT. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20000 (23%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 XT is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (9%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.