Radeon R7 M260 vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which comes with clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator 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 280X		8886 points
Radeon R7 M260		1120 points
	Difference: 7766 (693%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 280X should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon R7 M260 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 272000 (1700%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X should be quite a bit (about 534%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 91640 (534%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21480 (376%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.