Radeon R9 280X vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 580, which comes with a clock speed of 1257 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 2000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 14 nm design. It features 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 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 RX 580		13630 points
Radeon R9 280X		8886 points
	Difference: 4744 (53%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		315 Sol/s
Radeon R9 280X		294 Sol/s
	Difference: 21 (7%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		28 Mh/s
Radeon R9 280X		21 Mh/s
	Difference: 7 (33%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should be 10% faster than the Radeon RX 580 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
	Difference: 25856 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 will be quite a bit (about 66%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon R9 280X. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72208 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 will be much (approximately 48%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 280X, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13024 (48%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.