Radeon R9 280X vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 290X, which has GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

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 290X		10609 points
Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
	Difference: 1723 (19%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290X		369 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280X		294 Sol/s
	Difference: 75 (26%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290X		29 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
	Difference: 8 (38%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 290X should theoretically be a bit better than the Radeon R9 280X overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X should be a lot (approximately 29%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32000 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (88%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.