Radeon R5 M255 vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which features a core clock frequency of 933 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1792 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280 is 1400% quicker than the Radeon R5 M255 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (1400%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is quite a bit (approximately 456%) better at AF than the Radeon R5 M255. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 85696 (456%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is much (about 297%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R5 M255, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22336 (297%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.