Radeon HD 7950 3GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, 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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 280X		294 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		229 Sol/s
	Difference: 65 (28%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (about 21%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19200 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a bit (approximately 6%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.