Radeon R9 270X vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which has a core clock frequency of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 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 280		7961 points
Radeon R9 270X		6590 points
	Difference: 1371 (21%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280		183 Sol/s
Radeon R9 270X		177 Sol/s
	Difference: 6 (3%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
Radeon R9 270X		18 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (22%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 is 34% faster than the Radeon R9 270X in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 60800 (34%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is a lot (more or less 31%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R9 270X. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24496 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be just a bit (approximately 7%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2144 (7%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.