Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also features a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 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 390X 8G		13555 points
Radeon R9 280		7961 points
	Difference: 5594 (70%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		330 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280		183 Sol/s
	Difference: 147 (80%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		32 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
	Difference: 10 (45%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon R9 280 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is much (approximately 77%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 80304 (77%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37344 (125%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.