Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It features 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 RX 480 4GB		267 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280		183 Sol/s
	Difference: 84 (46%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 480 4GB		25 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
	Difference: 3 (14%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280 will be 5% quicker than the Radeon RX 480 4GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
	Difference: 10624 (5%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB will be much (about 54%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56784 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB will be a small bit (more or less 20%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5984 (20%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.