Radeon R7 250 vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which features GPU clock speed of 933 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, 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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 280		7961 points
Radeon R7 250		1836 points
	Difference: 6125 (334%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250		65 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 185 Watts (285%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 will be 226% faster than the Radeon R7 250 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250		73600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166400 (226%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 will be a lot (about 335%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 250. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 250		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 80496 (335%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250		8000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21856 (273%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card 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 Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many 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.