Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units 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 HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 6016 (210%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6870 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153600 (114%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be quite a bit (approximately 116%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58400 (116%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be a little bit (more or less 6%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.