Radeon R7 M260X vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280X will be 350% quicker than the Radeon R7 M260X overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (350%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be a lot (more or less 449%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 M260X. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 89000 (449%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (more or less 312%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 M260X, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20600 (312%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.