Radeon HD 7950 3GB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a core clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation 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.

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

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 280X should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (about 21%) better at anisotropic 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

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is a better choice, though only just barely. (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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 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 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.