Radeon R7 M260 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 M260		1120 points
	Difference: 7766 (693%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280X should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon R7 M260 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 272000 (1700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be much (approximately 534%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91640 (534%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 376%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 M260, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21480 (376%)

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 MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.