Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 580, which uses a 14 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1257 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 2000 MHz on this model. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 144 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 RX 580		13630 points
Radeon R9 280		7961 points
	Difference: 5669 (71%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		315 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280		183 Sol/s
	Difference: 132 (72%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		28 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280		22 Mh/s
	Difference: 6 (27%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 580		185 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 580 should perform a bit faster than the Radeon R9 280 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 22144 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 should be a lot (about 73%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 280. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76512 (73%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 will be a lot (about 35%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10368 (35%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 graphics 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 most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.