Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 470, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 926 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1650 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs 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 RX 470		11756 points
Radeon R9 280		7961 points
	Difference: 3795 (48%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 470		289 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280		183 Sol/s
	Difference: 106 (58%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 470		26 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (18%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 470		120 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280 will be 14% quicker than the Radeon RX 470 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 470		211200 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (14%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 470 should be a small bit (more or less 13%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 470		118528 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14032 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is superior to the Radeon RX 470, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 470		29632 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 224 (1%)

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 transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.