R9 280 vs 7950: Please click the green button to continue.

With the launch of the Radeon R9 series back in October of 2013, AMD began the process of releasing a number of their existing GCN 1.0 7000 cards as faster 200 series variants. Among the first were the 7970 and 7790, which became the R9 280X and R7 260X respectively; and since then we’ve seen the 7800 series released as the 270 series and 265, and the 7770 as the 250X. At this point AMD has released a 200 series variant of every major 7000 series card except one, the 7950, which was AMD’s lower end Tahiti card.

With that in mind, word comes from today that this is finally changing. As a lot of our regular readers have been expecting, AMD will be releasing a 7950 variant in the form of the R9 280, which is being announced today. The R9 280 will be filling in the same roll that its predecessor filled, which is offering a product between a full Tahiti (280X/7970) and a full Pitcairn (270X/7870) with pricing to match, while also serving as the standard lower tier bin for salvaged Tahiti GPUs. This marks the 3^rd such release for the 7950, first being released in its vanilla 7950 form, then in its 7950 with Boost form, and finally now as the R9 280.

AMD GPU Specification Comparison
	AMD Radeon R9 280X	AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition	AMD Radeon R9 280	AMD Radeon HD 7950 w/Boost
Stream Processors	2048	2048	1792	1792
Texture Units	128	128	112	112
ROPs	32	32	32	32
Core Clock	850MHz	1000MHz	?	850MHz
Boost Clock	1000MHz	1050MHz	933MHz	925MHz
Memory Clock	6GHz GDDR5	6GHz GDDR5	5GHz GDDR5	5GHz GDDR5
Memory Bus Width	384-bit	384-bit	384-bit	384-bit
VRAM	3GB	3GB	3GB	3GB
FP64	1/4	1/4	1/4	1/4
TrueAudio	N	N	N	N
Typical Board Power	250W	250W	250W	225W
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 28nm	TSMC 28nm
Architecture	GCN 1. 0	GCN 1.0	GCN 1.0	GCN 1.0
GPU	Tahiti	Tahiti	Tahiti	Tahiti
Launch Date	10/11/13	06/22/12	03/04/14	08/14/12
Launch Price	$299	$499	$279	$329

The R9 280 isn’t quite a rebadge of the 7950B, but it’s going to be very, very close. The specs provided by AMD put the boost clock at just 8MHz higher than the 7950B, with an unknown base clock (AMD still doesn’t publish that information), and every other aspect remaining unchanged. This means we’re looking at a Tahiti GPU with 28 CUs and all 32 ROPs active. The memory specifications remain similarly unaltered, with AMD outfitting the card with 3GB of 5GHz GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus.

There will be one wildcard however, and that is Typical Board Power. The 7950B was rated for 225W while 280 is rated for 250W. Until we have a card in hand we’re not in a position to tell whether AMD has made any meaningful change here to power limits or chip binning, or if this they’re just assigning the card the 280X’s TBP for consistency’s sake. But of all of the AMD GCN 1.0 cards with PowerTune Boost, this would be the SKU where any power limit increase would be the most meaningful. 7950B required a very big step up in voltage to hit its boost state, causing it to consistently fall back to its base state and putting the card’s average clockspeed well below its top clockspeed.

Assuming for the moment that AMD hasn’t made any power limit changes, then all signs point to 280 performing virtually identical to 7950B given their similar specifications. We’ll see what the final cards are like soon enough, but unless the 280 operates closer to its top clockspeed than 7950B then it shouldn’t be meaningfully different. In which case we’d be looking at roughly 85% of the performance of the 280X.

This is going to be a pure virtual launch for AMD’s partners – AMD hasn’t sampled the press at all – so we haven’t seen any pictures or specifications for the specific SKUs partners will be offering. But at this point it’s safe to assume we’ll see the same designs that were common for the 7950B and 280X, with some overclocked SKUs thrown in for good measure.

Meanwhile for the launch of the 280 AMD has set the MSRP at $279. However retail prices will be highly questionable, as market prices are still supporting $400+ for the 280X. AMD did specifically address pricing in their announcement, stating that they expect the 280 to ease some of these Tahiti supply problems, but all we can do is wait and see.

Following the exceptional demand for the entire R9 Series, we believe the introduction of the R9 280 will help ensure that every gamer who plans to purchase an R9 Series graphics card has an opportunity to do so.

As for availability, that matter is going to be even trickier. This is another soft launch for AMD, with AMD telling us that 280 cards should be available this week with wider availability next week. But after the launches of the 250X and 265 earlier this year, AMD doesn’t have much credibility on soft launches. 250X ended up being a week and a half late, and we’re still waiting on 265 despite AMD’s target of February. So at this point we’re taking AMD’s 280 availability estimates with a grain of salt, as availability this week seems unlikely.

Finally, sizing up the competition the 280 will fall between NVIDIA’s GTX 760 and GTX 770. Where exactly it falls will depend on where street prices are once the 280 launches. At $279 it primarily goes up against the $249 GTX 760, while at street prices over $300 it would be up against the faster $329 GTX 770.

We’re going to have to wait and see what the retail cards perform like and what street prices are, but if performance is similar to the 7950B then AMD will be navigating a very tight spot at $279. In our current benchmark suite the 7950B is roughly 5% faster than the GTX 760, so AMD would have a slight performance advantage but would be at a larger price disadvantage (12%). In which case AMD will also be relying on their value added features such as Mantle and their larger 3GB of VRAM to help carry the difference.

Wrapping things up, we expect to have a 280 card in our hands a bit later this month and we should have hard performance numbers soon. So stay tuned.

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MSI R9 280 GAMING 3G Graphics Card Review

by XbitLabs Team

Last update 27 May 2021

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We’ve finally managed to lay our hands on the graphics card that is potentially the best in terms of price/performance ratio. Today we’re going to check out if the Radeon R9 280 is indeed unrivaled in its category.

In early 2012 AMD rolled out the Radeon HD 7950, the junior cousin to the company’s then-flagship Radeon HD 7970. The release provoked an excitement in the overclocking community because some samples of the card with Tahiti GPU, those with the reference design in the first place, could be unlocked to the level of a Radeon HD 7970 and then overclocked quite a bit, too. So, for the recommended $449 you might get a full-featured Radeon HD 7970 that cost $100 more.

It is no secret that AMD’s new Radeon R9 and R7 product series announced in October 2013 includes a renamed Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition which is now known under the model name of Radeon R9 280X. The Radeon HD 7950, in its turn, was supposed to be replaced by a Radeon R9 280, yet the latter card was delayed although its recommended price was dropped from $279 to $249 almost right after its announcement in March 2014.

Thus, what we are offered now is actually a Radeon HD 7950 that costs only about half as much as in 2012 and comes with much higher clock rates in the pre-overclocked versions. We’re going to test one such version today. It is the Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3GB model from MSI.

It must be noted right away that there will be no reference Radeon R9 280 cards available because all manufacturers have developed custom PCBs (or just borrowed them from existing Radeon R9 280X products) and pre-overclocked the GPU. We also have no information about whether the R9 280 can be unlocked to the level of the R9 280X because such cards have begun to sell just recently, so there are yet no reports from the overclocking community.

Contents

Specifications and Recommended Price

The specs and price of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming are listed in the table in comparison with the closest products in MSI’s product range: MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming and MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming.

We’ve got the card in OEM packaging, so let’s get to checking out its PCB right away.

PCB Design and Features

The graphics card is designed in MSI’s easily recognizable Gaming series style. There’s the exclusive Twin Frozr IV Advanced cooler covering the entire face side of the PCB. The cooler is about the same size as the PCB itself.

The card measures 269x128x36 millimeters. With this height, you can use a couple of such cards in a CrossFireX configuration even in two adjacent PCIe slots.

Like the senior R9 280X model or the old HD 7970 and 7950, the new card has one dual-link DVI-I output, one HDMI version 1.4a, and two mini-DisplayPorts 1.2.

The HDMI connector features gold sputter coating which is supposed to minimize EMI and improve signal quality as MSI claims.

There are two CrossFireX connectors in their conventional location. Next to them, there’s a BIOS switch.

Also in their habitual place, there are one 6- and one 8-pin power connectors. The Radeon R9 280 is specified to need up to 250 watts of power, exactly like the Radeon R9 280X and about 25 watts more than the Radeon HD 7950. The card is going to consume 3 to 70 watts in 2D applications. A 550-watt or better PSU is recommended for a computer with one such graphics card inside.

The cooling system is secured with four screws around the GPU. Beneath it, we can find a heat-spreading plate and a small heatsink on the power system components.

To fully “undress” the card, we need to unfasten a few more screws including those on the mounting bracket.

The PCB layout seems to be the same as with the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming which uses the reference Radeon HD 7970 design, yet this PCB is different.

The power system consists of 11 phases, ten of which are located to the right of the GPU in a neat column. One more phase can be found near the mounting bracket. The GPU seems to use eight out of these ten DirectFET power phases.

The remaining 2+1 phases are responsible for the memory chips and PLL. Overclockers should appreciate the fact that the Radeon R9 280 has a more advanced power system than the Radeon R9 280X. Moreover, all of the card’s components comply with the American Military Class IV standard (MIL-STD-810G).

The power system uses aluminum-core solid-state capacitors with ultra-low resistance and 10-year service life, economical (93% efficient) Hi-c capacitors and Super Ferrite Chokes with 20% higher energy efficiency and 30% higher current capacity compared to ordinary chokes.

The GPU voltage regulator is based on an IOR 3563B controller from International Rectifier.

It is an 8-phase I2C-compliant controller which supports voltage adjustment for power savings or overclocking. The latest beta version of the MSI Afterburner utility already allows you to tweak the GPU voltage of this Radeon R9 280.

The GPU is a regular 28nm Tahiti chip manufactured in Taiwan.

The GPU die is 352 sq. mm large, incorporating about 4313 million transistors. It contains 1792 unified shader processors, 112 texture-mapping units and 32 raster operators. There’s no difference from the reference Radeon HD 7950 in this respect. The clock rate can be as high as 933 MHz instead of the older card’s 800 MHz. Moreover, the GPU clock rate is not strictly specified by AMD, so the graphics card makers have already released a lot of pre-overclocked versions.

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming can have a GPU frequency of 933, 972 or 1000 MHz depending on the operation mode you select in MSI Gaming App. If you don’t install that app and don’t choose any of the three available GPU/cooler presets, the graphics card will clock its GPU at 972 MHz at peak loads. In 2D applications the frequency is dropped to 300 MHz and the voltage is reduced, too.

The ASIC quality of our sample of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is very low at only 59.7%.

The graphics card has 3 gigabytes of GDDR5 memory in 12 FCBGA-packaged chips soldered to the face side of its PCB. These are H5GQ2h34AFR T2C chips from SK Hynix.

The memory chips are clocked at their rated frequency of 5000 MHz (the frequency is dropped to 600 MHz in 2D applications). Coupled with the 384-bit bus, the peak memory bandwidth is 240 GB/s. So, the Radeon R9 280 is no different from the Radeon HD 7950 in terms of graphics memory.

Cooling System: Efficiency and Noise Level

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is equipped with MSI’s exclusive Twin Frozr IV Advanced cooler.

It is the same cooler as is installed on the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming.

The nickel-plated aluminum heatsink is pierced by five heat pipes that go out of the cooler’s copper base. Four of the pipes are 6 mm in diameter and one pipe is 8 mm in diameter.

The Twin Frozr IV Advanced features SuperPipes with twice the heat-transfer capacity of ordinary heat pipes. The pipes, heatsink fins and base are all soldered to each other. There’s a special GPU contact spot on the cooler’s base.

The card’s memory, excepting one chip, is cooled by a metallic plate with thermal pads. A black-painted aluminum heatsink is mounted on the power system components.

The cooler has two 100mm fans (the actual size of the impeller is 93 mm) with Propeller Blade technology (thanks to the slanted edges of the blades, the fans are supposed to create higher pressure at lower noise). These Power Logic fans are marked as PLD10010S12HH.

According to the marking, the fans run on fluid-dynamic bearings, yet their service life is not specified in their specs. The speed of the fans, according to our monitoring tools, is PWM-regulated in a range of 920 to 3040 RPM. There is no highlighting.

To measure the temperature of the graphics card we ran Aliens vs. Predator (2010) five times at the maximum visual quality settings, at a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, with 16x anisotropic filtering and with 4x MSAA.

We used MSI Afterburner 3.0.0 and GPU-Z version 0.7.8 to monitor temperatures inside the closed computer case. The computer’s configuration is detailed in the following section of our review. All tests were performed at 25°C room temperature.

The Twin Frozr IV Advanced once again proved its high performance even with its fans regulated automatically.

Auto fans speed mode

The peak GPU temperature of 79°C is rather high, but we should note that the fans are never faster than 1720 RPM. It is quite a comfortable level of noise.

And if cooling performance is your top priority, you can manually set the fans at their maximum speed and drop the temperature by 12°C.

So, the cooler doesn’t give you a cause to worry about overheat. Let’s see how noisy it is, though.

We measured the level of noise using an electronic noise-level meter CENTER-321 in a closed and quiet room about 20 sq. meters large. The noise-level meter was set on a tripod at a distance of 15 centimeters from the graphics card which was installed on an open testbed. The mainboard with the graphics card was placed at an edge of a desk on a foam-rubber tray. The bottom limit of our noise-level meter is 29.8 dBA whereas the subjectively comfortable (not low, but comfortable) level of noise, when measured from that distance, is about 36 dBA. The speed of the graphics card’s fans was being adjusted by means of a controller that changed the supply voltage in steps of 0.5 V.

In our noise level test we will compare the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming with the original cards MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming, Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X and EVGA GeForce GTX 760 Dual FTW ACX. The vertical dotted lines mark the top speed of the coolers’ fans in the automatic regulation mode.

The noise level graphs of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming and MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming are very close to each other because these cards have identical coolers. Yet the R9 280 Gaming is quieter because its fans work at lower speeds when regulated automatically. The new card is quieter in 2D mode too, so we suppose that the fan regulation algorithm has been additionally optimized for it.

Compared to its opponents, the new card from MSI is better than the EVGA GeForce GTX 760 Dual FTW ACX but worse than the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X. Overall, we are quite satisfied with the noise level of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming.

Overclocking Potential

As many overclockers will remember, even if a Radeon HD 7950 could not be unlocked to the Radeon HD 7970 level, it might be overclocked to bridge the gap. Our sample of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming did very well in this respect. We managed to increase its GPU clock rate by 20.4% (198 MHz) and its memory clock rate by as much as 40% (2000 MHz)!

The resulting clock rates were 1170/7000 MHz, which is much higher than the default clock rates of any original Radeon R9 280X.

We hope our overclocking can make up for the lack of shader processors and texture-mapping units in the Tahiti GPU and help it beat the Radeon R9 280X. Let’s see what temperature the overclocked card has with its fans regulated automatically:

The GPU has got 3°C hotter, up to 82°C. The top speed of the fans is 340 RPM higher at 2060 RPM.

Testbed and Methods

Here is the list of components we use in our testbed.

• Mainboard: Intel Siler DX79SR (Intel X79 Express, LGA2011, BIOS 0594 dated 06.08.2013)
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition 3.5/4.0 GHz (Sandy Bridge-E, C2, 1.1 V, 6x256KB L2 cache, 15MB L3 cache)
• CPU cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14P (2×900 RPM)
• Thermal grease: ARCTIC MX-4
• Graphics cards:
• EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX 2GB (1111-1163/7012 MHz)
• MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 3GB (1050/6000 MHz)
• MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3GB (972/5000 and 1170/7000 MHz)
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X 4GB (1085-1150/6008 MHz)
• MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming (4GB, 1120/5600 MHz)
• System memory: DDR3 4x8GB G. SKILL TridentX F3-2133C9Q-32GTX (XMP: 2133 MHz, 9-11-11-31, 1.6 volts)
• System disk: SSD 256GB Crucial m4 (SATA 6 Gbit/s, CT256M4SSD2, BIOS v070H)
• Games/software disk: Western Digital VelociRaptor (SATA-2, 300 GB, 10000 RPM, 16MB cache, NCQ) in a Scythe Quiet Drive 3.5″ enclosure
• Backup disk: Samsung EcoGreen F4 HD204UI (SATA-2, 2 TB, 5400 RPM, 32 MB cache, NCQ)
• Sound card: Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD
• Computer case: Antec Twelve Hundred (front panel: three Noiseblocker NB-Multiframe S-Series MF12-S2 fans at 1020 RPM; back panel: two Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPRO PL-1 fans at 1020 RPM; top panel: one preinstalled 200mm fan at 400 RPM)
• Control & monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC3
• Power supply: Corsair AX1200i (1200 W), 120mm fan
• Monitor: 27″ Samsung S27A850D (DVI-I, 2560×1440, 60 Hz)

We’ll compare the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3GB with an MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 3GB as the next step up the performance ladder. The Nvidia camp will be represented by an EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX 2GB.

There will also be a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X with 4GB of onboard memory which is priced comparably to the Radeon R9 280. And we’ll also throw in an MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming with 4GB of memory as the junior product in this class.

We set Power Limit at its maximum on each graphics card.

In order to lower the dependence of the graphics cards’ performance on the overall platform speed, we overclocked our 32nm six-core CPU to 4.8 GHz by setting its frequency multiplier at x48 and enabling Load-Line Calibration. The CPU voltage was increased to 1.385 volts in the mainboard’s BIOS.

Hyper-Threading was turned on. We used 32 GB of system memory at 2.133 GHz with timings of 9-11-11-20_CR1 and voltage of 1.6125 volts.

The testbed ran Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 with all critical updates installed. We used the following drivers:

• Intel Chipset Drivers – 9. 4.4.1006 WHQL dated 21.09.2013
• DirectX End-User Runtimes, dated 30 November 2010
• AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta (14.100.0.0) dated 27.05.2014
• Nvidia GeForce 337.88 WHQL dated 26.05.2014

Other driver versions may be found in some of the GPU-Z screenshots in this review, but we took those screenshots from other articles only to compare the graphics cards’ specs.

We benchmarked the graphics cards’ performance at two display resolutions: 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 pixels. There were two visual quality modes: “Quality+AF16x” means the default texturing quality in the drivers + 16x anisotropic filtering whereas “Quality+ AF16x+MSAA 4x(8x)” means 16x anisotropic filtering and 4x or 8x antialiasing. In some games we use antialiasing algorithms other than MSAA as indicated below and in the diagrams. We enabled anisotropic filtering and full-screen antialiasing from the game’s menu. If the corresponding options were missing, we changed these settings in the Control Panels of the Catalyst and GeForce drivers. We also disabled V-Sync there. There were no other changes in the driver settings.

The graphics cards were tested in two benchmarks and 14 games updated to the latest versions.

• 3DMark (2013) (DirectX 9/11) version 1.3.708: Cloud Gate, Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme scenes.
• Unigine Valley Bench (DirectX 11) version 1.0: Maximum visual quality settings, 16x AF and/or 4x MSAA, 1920×1080.
• Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Fall of the Samurai (DirectX 11) version 1.1.0: integrated benchmark (the Sekigahara battle) with maximum visual quality settings and 8x MSAA.
• Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark (DirectX 11) version 1.05: Adrenaline Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.2 BETA with maximum graphics quality settings (“Ultra” profile), Advanced Shadows: HIGH, Ambient Occlusion: ON, Stereo 3D: OFF, Supersampling: OFF, two sequential runs of the test.
• Sleeping Dogs (DirectX 11) version 1.5: Adrenaline Sleeping Dogs Benchmark Tool v1. 0.2.1 with maximum image quality settings, Hi-Res Textures pack installed, FPS Limiter and V-Sync disabled, two consecutive runs of the built-in benchmark with quality antialiasing at Normal and Extreme levels.
• Hitman: Absolution (DirectX 11) version 1.0.447.0: built-in test with Ultra settings, enabled tessellation, FXAA and global lighting.
• Crysis 3 (DirectX 11) version 1.2.0.1000: maximum visual quality settings, Motion Blur – Medium, lens flares – on, FXAA and MSAA 4x, two consecutive runs of a scripted scene from the beginning of the “Swamp” mission (110 seconds long).
• Tomb Raider (2013) (DirectX 11) version 1.1.748.0: we used Adrenaline Benchmark Tool, all image quality settings set to “Ultra”, V-Sync disabled, FXAA and 2x SSAA antialiasing enabled, TessFX technology activated, two consecutive runs of the in-game benchmark.
• BioShock Infinite (DirectX 11) version 1.1.25.5165: we used Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool with “Ultra” and “Ultra+DOF” quality settings, two consecutive runs of the in-game benchmark.
• Metro: Last Light (DirectX 11) version 1.0.0.15: we used the built-in benchmark for two consecutive runs of the D6 scene. All image quality and tessellation settings were at “Very High”, Advanced PhysX technology enabled, with and without SSAA antialiasing.
• GRID 2 (DirectX 11) version 1.0.85.8679: we used the built-in benchmark, the visual quality settings were all at their maximums, the tests were run with and without MSAA 8x antialiasing with eight cars on the Chicago track.
• Company of Heroes 2 (DirectX 11) version 3.0.0.13946: two consecutive runs of the integrated benchmark at maximum image quality and physics effects settings.
• Total War: Rome II (DirectX 11) version 1.11.0.0: Extreme quality, V-Sync disabled, SSAA enabled, two consecutive runs of the integrated benchmark.
• Batman: Arkham Origins (DirectX 11) version 1.0 update 8: Ultra visual quality, V-Sync disabled, all the effects enabled, all DX11 Enhanced features enabled, Hardware Accelerated PhysX = Normal, two consecutive runs of the in-game benchmark.
• Battlefield 4 (DirectX 11) – version 111433: Ultra settings, two successive runs of a scripted scene from the beginning of the “Tashgar” mission (110 seconds long), with the Mantle API enabled for AMD-based cards.
• Thief (DirectX 11) version 1.5 build 4158.5: Maximum visual quality settings, Parallax Occlusion Mapping and Tessellation enabled, a double run of the in-game benchmark with the Mantle API enabled for AMD-based cards.

We publish the bottom frame rate for games that report it. Each test was run twice, the final result being the best of the two if they differed by less than 1%. If we had a larger difference, we reran the test at least once again to get repeatable results.

Performance

The results of the Nvidia-based cards, EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX and Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X, are colored light-green in the diagrams below. The trio of MSI’s Radeon R9 Gaming products is colored red. The color of the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming in overclocked mode is lilac. The graphics cards are sorted in the order of descending retail price. Let’s get started!

3DMark (2013)

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming easily outperforms the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming as well as its main opponent GeForce GTX 760 (represented by a rather fast original version from Gigabyte). It is 13.6% behind the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming but beats the latter when overclocked.
Unigine Valley Bench

Our graphics cards differ more in this benchmark:

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming can only compete with the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X when antialiasing is turned on. It also takes a position right in between the R9 280X and R9 270X models from the same Gaming series. Overclocked to 1170/7000 MHz, the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming becomes the fastest of the AMD-based products and second only to the EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX.

Total War: SHOGUN 2 – Fall of the Samurai

The standings are overall the same in this game as in the previous benchmark.

Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark

The new card from MSI can only compete with the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X when overclocked because Nvidia-based solutions are generally superior to their AMD-based opponents in this game.

We can also note that the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming fits perfectly between the Radeon R9 280X Gaming and the Radeon R9 270X Gaming. The new model is just what AMD has been lacking in its product range.

Sleeping Dogs

In this test the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is comparable to the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X in three out of the four test modes but goes ahead by 16.7% in the hardest mode. When overclocked, the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming easily catches up with the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming and the EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX.

Hitman: Absolution

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming enjoys an even larger advantage over its opponent in this game:

It beats the Gigabyte easily and leaves the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming behind by up to 22%. It is also up to 15% slower than the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming but becomes an undisputed leader when overclocked.

Crysis 3

We have the same standings here as in the previous game:

Tomb Raider (2013)

Like in Hitman: Absolution, AMD beats Nvidia in every product category here.

BioShock Infinite

Once again the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming fits perfectly in between the Radeon R9 280X Gaming and the R9 270X Gaming.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X has the same average frame rate although is slower in terms of bottom speed, which is a peculiarity of the in-game benchmark. Our overclocking makes the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming substantially faster, so it can outperform the Radeon R9 280X Gaming and catch up with the leader EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX.

Metro: Last Light

The Nvidia-based products are superior in this game with Advanced PhysX enabled but we can still note that the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming fits perfectly between its two cousins from the same Gaming series.

Turning off Advanced PhysX increases the frame rate of AMD-based cards in Metro: Last Light.Now the standings are typical of this test session.

GRID 2

The GRID 2 results are interesting because the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X, being an opponent to the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming, actually competes with the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming and cannot match the more advanced AMD-based models. The EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX is expectedly faster than the Gigabyte, yet slower than the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming as well as the overclocked MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming.

Company of Heroes 2

This game is sensitive to the amount of graphics memory, therefore we have different standings than in the previous games.

The Nvidia-based products fall behind their AMD counterparts in each class, the 4GB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X being just a little slower than the 2GB EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX and even having higher bottom speed in three out of the four test modes. Equipped with 4 GB of onboard memory, the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming is almost as fast as the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming while the latter is comparable to the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming.

Total War: Rome II

The AMD-based products are superior to their Nvidia-based opponents in this game, the MSI Gaming trio having the same relative standings as in most of the previous tests.

Batman: Arkham Origins

We can see a typical picture with 8x MSAA turned on. When we turn it off, however, the Nvidia-based products have an advantage.Still, the R9 Gaming series trio have the same relative standings as before.

Battlefield 4

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming performs very well here, too.14 to 19% faster than the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming, the new card is also ahead of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X. It is 11-15% slower than the Radeon R9 280X Gaming but beats the latter and the more expensive EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked ACX when overclocked.

Thief

MSI’s R9 Gaming series score another win over their opponents in Thief. Here’s a table with the full test results showing the overall average and bottom speed for each graphics card.

Now we can move on to our summary charts.

Performance Summary

First of all, let’s see how faster the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming 3GB is in comparison with the MSI Radeon R9 270X 4GB, the latter serving as a baseline.

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is an average 14.3-19.4% faster than the R9 280X at 1920×1080 and 18.2-20.4% faster at 2560×1440 pixels. The price difference between the two cards is about 20%, matching the difference in their performance.

The AMD Radeon R9 280 is positioned as an opponent to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 760, so we’ll compare them in the next summary charts. The GTX 760 is represented by the pre-overclocked Gigabyte GeForce GTX 760 OC WindForce 3X (1085-1150/6008 MHz) with as much as 4 GB of graphics memory but the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is pre-overclocked as well. Here are the results.

The GeForce GTX 760 doesn’t have many wins against the Radeon R9 280: Sniper Elite V2, Metro: Last Light (with Advanced PhysX enabled), and Batman: Arkham Origins (without antialiasing). The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming, in its turn, wins in Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, Metro: Last Light, GRID 2, Company of Heroes 2, Total War: Rome II, Battlefield 4, Thief, and in the high-quality test modes of Sleeping Dogs, Crysis 3 and Batman: Arkham Origins. It is clear the Radeon R9 280 is somewhat faster than the GeForce GTX 760 overall. Its advantage amounts to 4-5% at 1920×1080 and to 8-9% at 2560×1440 across all the tests.

The next charts help compare the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming and the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming.

The full-featured Tahiti core of the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming working at a higher clock rate and its faster memory make it superior to the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming. The gap is smaller than between the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming and the MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming, though. The average difference is 12-13%, which isn’t very large.

This difference can be easily covered by overclocking the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming. We managed to increase the GPU and memory clock rates by 20. 4% (to 1170 MHz) and 40% (to 7000 MHz), respectively, so the overclocked card beat its senior cousin in the majority of our tests.

Of course, the MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming can be overclocked as well, but this review is all about the Radeon R9 280 without any X’s.

Power Consumption

We measured the power consumption of computer systems with different graphics cards using a multifunctional panel Zalman ZM-MFC3 which can report how much power a computer (the monitor not included) draws from a wall socket. There were two test modes: 2D (editing documents in Microsoft Word and web surfing) and 3D (the intro scene of the Swamp level from Crysis 3 running four times in a loop at 2560×1440 with maximum visual quality settings but without MSAA). Here are the results:

Interestingly, the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming configuration needs somewhat more power than the same configuration with an MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming. It must be due to some differences in their PCB designs and/or measurement inaccuracies. The difference is a mere 0.8% and may be easily neglected. When the MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is overclocked, the power draw rises by 26 watts, still staying within AMD’s recommended 550-watt limit.

Conclusion

The AMD Radeon R9 280 comes at a recommended $249 and beats the GeForce GTX 760 in the majority of tests. It is 20% faster than the Radeon R9 270X and only 13% slower than the Radeon R9 280X. And it can be easily overclocked to beat its more advanced cousin. All in all, we guess it has everything it takes to become a bestseller in the midrange segment.

The MSI Radeon R9 280 Gaming is a well-implemented version of the new graphics card which features an efficient cooler, factory GPU overclocking, premium components, high frequency potential and a 3-year warranty. We hope that other brands will release just as attractive Radeon R9 280 cards of their own.

AMD Radeon R9 280 vs MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

: What is the difference?

33 BALLLA

AMD Radeon R9 280

41 BALLLA

MSI Radeon HD 7950 BOOST OC

54 facts compared to

AMD Radeon R9

9000 9000 BOOST OC 7950 BOOST OC

better than MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC?

• 1 more DVI outputs?
  2 vs 1
• 18mm narrower?
  274mm vs 292mm
• 14mm lower? Why is MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC better than AMD Radeon R9 280?
  • Has DPFP?

  What are the most popular comparisons?

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  VS

  AMD Radeon Vega 8

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  VS

  GIGABYTE RADEON RX 550

  AMD RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON r

  AMD Radeon R9 270X

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  vs

  AMD Radeon RX Vega 8

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  vs

  Gigabyte Radeon RX 550

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  vs

  MSI GEFORCE GTX 1080 Founders Edition

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  VS

  AMD Radeon R

  vs

  AMD Radeon RX 570

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  vs

  Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6500 XT

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  vs

  Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  VS

  AMD Radeon R5

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  VS

  NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 BOOST OC

  VS

  9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 9000 AMD RADEON RADEON RADEON RADEON R7280

  vs

  Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  vs

  PowerColor Red Devil Radeon RX 580 Golden Sample

  AMD Radeon R9 280

  vs

  AMD Radeon R7 360

  MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  VS

  AMD Radeon RX 5500

  Price Match

  User Reviews

  Performance

  1. GPU clock speed

  827MHz

  830MHz

  The graphics processing unit (GPU) has a higher clock speed.

  2.turbo GPU

  933MHz

  925MHz

  When the GPU is running below its limits, it can jump to a higher clock speed to increase performance.

  3.pixel speed

  26.5 GPixel/s

  26.6 GPixel/s

  The number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.

  4.flops

  2.96 TFLOPS

  2.98 TFLOPS

  FLOPS is a measurement of GPU processing power.

  5.texture size

  92.6 GTexels/s

  93 GTexels/s

  Number of textured pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.

  6.GPU memory speed

  1250MHz

  1250MHz

  Memory speed is one aspect that determines memory bandwidth.

  7. shading patterns

  Shading units (or stream processors) are small processors in a video card that are responsible for processing various aspects of an image.

  8.textured units (TMUs)

  TMUs accept textured units and bind them to the geometric layout of the 3D scene. More TMUs generally means texture information is processed faster.

  9 ROPs

  ROPs are responsible for some of the final steps of the rendering process, such as writing the final pixel data to memory and for performing other tasks such as anti-aliasing to improve the appearance of graphics.

  Memory

  1.memory effective speed

  5000MHz

  5000MHz

  The effective memory clock frequency is calculated from the memory size and data transfer rate. A higher clock speed can give better performance in games and other applications.

  2. max memory bandwidth

  240GB/s

  240GB/s

  This is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored in memory.

  3.VRAM

  VRAM (video RAM) is the dedicated memory of the graphics card. More VRAM usually allows you to run games at higher settings, especially for things like texture resolution.

  4.memory bus width

  384bit

  384bit

  Wider memory bus means it can carry more data per cycle. This is an important factor in memory performance, and therefore the overall performance of the graphics card.

  5.GDDR memory versions

  Later versions of GDDR memory offer improvements such as higher data transfer rates, which improve performance.

  6. Supports memory debug code

  ✖AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✖MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  Memory debug code can detect and fix data corruption. It is used when necessary to avoid distortion, such as in scientific computing or when starting a server.

  Functions

  1.DirectX version

  DirectX is used in games with a new version that supports better graphics.

  2nd version of OpenGL

  The newer version of OpenGL, the better graphics quality in games.

  OpenCL version 3.

  Some applications use OpenCL to use the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for non-graphical computing. Newer versions are more functional and better quality.

  4. Supports multi-monitor technology

  ✔AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✔MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  The video card has the ability to connect multiple displays. This allows you to set up multiple monitors at the same time to create a more immersive gaming experience, such as a wider field of view.

  5. GPU temperature at boot

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280)

  Lower boot temperature means the card generates less heat and the cooling system works better.

  6.supports ray tracing

  ✖AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✖MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  Ray tracing is an advanced light rendering technique that provides more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections in games.

  7. Supports 3D

  ✔AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✔MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  Allows you to view in 3D (if you have a 3D screen and glasses).

  8.supports DLSS

  ✖AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✖MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an AI based scaling technology. This allows the graphics card to render games at lower resolutions and upscale them to higher resolutions with near-native visual quality and improved performance. DLSS is only available in some games.

  9. PassMark result (G3D)

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9280)

  This test measures the graphics performance of a graphics card. Source: Pass Mark.

  Ports

  1.has HDMI output

  ✔AMD Radeon R9 280

  ✔MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC

  Devices with HDMI or mini HDMI ports can stream HD video and audio to the connected display.

  2.HDMI connectors

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280)

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC)

  More HDMI connectors allow you to connect multiple devices such as game consoles and TVs at the same time.

  3rd HDMI version

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280)

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (MSI Radeon HD 7950 Boost OC)

  Newer versions of HDMI support higher bandwidth for higher resolutions and frame rates.

  4. DisplayPort outputs

  Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280)

  Allows you to connect to a display using DisplayPort.

  5.DVI outputs

  Allows connection to a display using DVI.

  Mini DisplayPort 6.outs

  Allows connection to a display using Mini DisplayPort.

  Price Match

  Cancel

  Which graphics cards are better?

  AMD Radeon R

  vs 2.9 TFLOPS

• 10W below TDP?
  190W vs 200W
• 250MHz faster memory speed?
  1500MHz vs 1250MHz
• 1000MHz higher effective clock speed?
  6000MHz vs 5000MHz
• 18.3 GTexels/s higher number of textured pixels? more memory bandwidth?
  288GB/s vs 240GB/s
• 256 more stream processors?
  2048 vs 1792
• 75MHz faster GPU turbo speed?
  1000MHz vs 925MHz

• Has DPFP?
• Supports 2 more displays?
  6 vs 4
• 2 more mini DisplayPort outputs?
  2 vs 0

Which comparisons are the most popular?

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

AMD Radeon R9 370X

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

XFX Radeon RX 580 GTR XXX OC+ 8GB

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 760

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

AMD Radeon R9 280

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 550 4GB

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

0003

vs

AMD Radeon RX 550

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

AMD Radeon RX 580

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1660 Super

280X

vs

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Dual-X

AMD Radeon R9 280X

vs

AMD Radeon R9 380

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

vs

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 OC

Price Comparison

User Reviews

Performance

1. GPU Clock Speed ​​

850MHz

9003 8103 850MHz0004 The graphics processing unit (GPU) has a higher clock speed.

2.turbo GPU

1000MHz

925MHz

When the GPU is running below its limits, it can jump to a higher clock speed to increase performance.

3.pixel rate

27.2 GPixel/s

25.9 GPixel/s

The number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.

4.flops

3.48 TFLOPS

2.9 TFLOPS

FLOPS is a measurement of GPU processing power.

5.texture size

109 GTexels/s

90.7 GTexels/s

Number of textured pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.

6.GPU memory speed

1500MHz

1250MHz

Memory speed is one aspect that determines memory bandwidth.

7. hatch patterns

Shading units (or stream processors) are small processors in a video card that are responsible for processing various aspects of an image.

8.textured units (TMUs)

TMUs accept textured units and bind them to the geometric layout of the 3D scene. More TMUs generally means texture information is processed faster.

9 ROPs

ROPs are responsible for some of the final steps of the rendering process, such as writing the final pixel data to memory and for performing other tasks such as anti-aliasing to improve the appearance of graphics.

Memory

1.memory effective speed

6000MHz

5000MHz

The effective memory clock frequency is calculated from the size and data transfer rate of the memory. A higher clock speed can give better performance in games and other applications.

2. max memory bandwidth

288GB/s

240GB/s

This is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored in memory.

3.VRAM

VRAM (video RAM) is the dedicated memory of the graphics card. More VRAM usually allows you to run games at higher settings, especially for things like texture resolution.

4.memory bus width

384bit

384bit

Wider memory bus means it can carry more data per cycle. This is an important factor in memory performance, and therefore the overall performance of the graphics card.

5.versions of GDDR memory

Later versions of GDDR memory offer improvements such as higher data transfer rates, which improve performance.

6. Supports memory debug code

✖AMD Radeon R9 280X

✖Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

Memory debug code can detect and fix data corruption. It is used when necessary to avoid distortion, such as in scientific computing or when starting a server.

Functions

1.DirectX version

DirectX is used in games with a new version that supports better graphics.

2nd version of OpenGL

The newer version of OpenGL, the better graphics quality in games.

OpenCL version 3.

Some applications use OpenCL to use the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for non-graphical computing. Newer versions are more functional and better quality.

4. Supports multi-monitor technology

✔AMD Radeon R9 280X

✔Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

The video card has the ability to connect multiple screens. This allows you to set up multiple monitors at the same time to create a more immersive gaming experience, such as a wider field of view.

5. GPU Temperature at Boot

Lower boot temperature means that the card generates less heat and the cooling system works better.

6.supports ray tracing

✖AMD Radeon R9 280X

✖Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

Ray tracing is an advanced light rendering technique that provides more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections in games.

7. Supports 3D

✔AMD Radeon R9 280X

✔Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

Allows you to view in 3D (if you have a 3D screen and glasses).

8.supports DLSS

✖AMD Radeon R9 280X

✖Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an AI based scaling technology. This allows the graphics card to render games at lower resolutions and upscale them to higher resolutions with near-native visual quality and improved performance. DLSS is only available in some games.

9. PassMark result (G3D)

This test measures the graphics performance of a graphics card. Source: Pass Mark.

Ports

1.has HDMI output

✔AMD Radeon R9 280X

✔Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

Devices with HDMI or mini HDMI ports can stream HD video and audio to an attached display.

2.HDMI connectors

Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280X)

Unknown. Help us offer a price. (Sapphire Radeon HD 7950)

More HDMI connectors allow you to connect multiple devices at the same time, such as game consoles and TVs.

HDMI version 3

Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon R9 280X)

Unknown. Help us offer a price. (Sapphire Radeon HD 7950)

Newer versions of HDMI support higher bandwidth for higher resolutions and frame rates.

4. DisplayPort outputs

Allows connection to a display using DisplayPort.

5.DVI outputs

Allows connection to a display using DVI.

6.mini DisplayPort outputs

Allows connection to a display using mini DisplayPort.

Price Match

Cancel

Which graphics cards are better?

Comparison of AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon HD 7950

Comparative analysis of AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon HD 7950 video cards by all known characteristics in the categories: General information, Specifications, Video outputs and ports, Compatibility, dimensions, requirements, API support, Memory, Technology support.
Analysis of video card performance by benchmarks: PassMark — G3D Mark, PassMark — G2D Mark, CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Face Detection (mPixels/s), CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Ocean Surface Simulation (Frames/s), CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — T-Rex (Frames) /s), CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Video Composition (Frames/s), CompuBench 1. 5 Desktop — Bitcoin Mining (mHash/s), GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Frames), GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Frames), GFXBench 4.0 — T -Rex (Frames), GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Fps), GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Fps), GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Fps), 3DMark Fire Strike — Graphics Score, Geekbench — OpenCL.

AMD Radeon R9 280

versus

AMD Radeon HD 7950

Benefits

Reasons to choose AMD Radeon R9 280

• Newer graphics card, release dates difference 2 year(s) 1 month(s) 14% faster texturing.5 GTexel / s vs 89.6 GTexel / s
• 17% more floating point performance: 3.344 gflops vs 2.867 gflops
• About 50% less power consumption: 200 Watt vs 300 Watt
• Approximately 6% more performance in CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Face Detection (mPixels/s) benchmark: 67.829 vs 63.74 1177.395
• About 13% more performance in CompuBench 1. 5 Desktop — T-Rex (Frames/s): 6.405 vs 5.685
• About 15% more performance in CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Video Composition (Frames/s): 79.909 vs 69.23
• About 6% more performance in CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Bitcoin Mining (mHash/s): 365.384 vs 343.81
• About 6% more performance in 3DMark Fire Strike — Graphics Score: 2043 vs 1932 9027

Issue date	4 March 2014 vs 31 January 2012
Texturing speed	104.5 GTexel/s vs 89.6 GTexel/s
Floating point performance	3.344 gflops vs 2.867 gflops
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt vs 300 Watt
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Face Detection (mPixels/s)	67. 829 vs 63.74
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Ocean Surface Simulation (Frames/s)	1266.685 vs 1177.395
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — T-Rex (Frames/s)	6.405 vs 5.685
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Video Composition (Frames/s)	79.909 vs 69.23
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Bitcoin Mining (mHash/s)	365.384 vs 343.81
3DMark Fire Strike — Graphics Score	2043 vs 1932

Reasons to choose AMD Radeon HD 7950

• Boost core clock 34% higher: 1250 MHz vs 933 MHz
• About 1% more performance in GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Frames) benchmark: 3359 vs 3337
• About 1% more performance in GFXBench 4. 0 — T-Rex (Fps) benchmark: 3359 vs 3337

9004

Boost core clock	1250 MHz vs 933 MHz
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Frames)	7988 vs 7957
GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Frames)	3699 vs 3698
GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Frames)	3359 vs 3337
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Fps)	7988 vs 7957
GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Fps)	3699 vs 3698
GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Fps)	3359 vs 3337

Benchmark comparison

GPU 1: AMD Radeon R9 280
GPU 2: AMD Radeon HD 7950

CompuBench 1. 5 Desktop — Face Detection (mPixels/s)	GPU 1 GPU 2	67.829
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Ocean Surface Simulation (Frames/s)	GPU 1 GPU 2	1266.685 1177.395
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — T-Rex (Frames/s)	GPU 1 GPU 2
CompuBench 1. 5 Desktop — Video Composition (Frames/s)	GPU 1 GPU 2	79.909
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Bitcoin Mining (mHash/s)	GPU 1 GPU 2	365.384 343.81
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Frames)	GPU 1 GPU 2
GFXBench 4. 0 — Manhattan (Frames)	GPU 1 GPU 2
GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Frames)	GPU 1 GPU 2
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Fps)	GPU 1 GPU 2
GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Fps)	GPU 1 GPU 2
GFXBench 4. 0 — T-Rex (Fps)	GPU 1 GPU 2
3DMark Fire Strike — Graphics Score	GPU 1 GPU 2

Name	AMD Radeon R9 280	AMD Radeon HD 7950
PassMark — G3D Mark	5658
PassMark — G2D Mark	681
CompuBench 1. 5 Desktop — Face Detection (mPixels/s)	67.829	63.74
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Ocean Surface Simulation (Frames/s)	1266.685	1177.395
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — T-Rex (Frames/s)	6.405	5.685
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Video Composition (Frames/s)	79.909	69.23
CompuBench 1.5 Desktop — Bitcoin Mining (mHash/s)	365.384	343.81
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Frames)	7957	7988
GFXBench 4. 0 — Manhattan (Frames)	3698	3699
GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Frames)	3337	3359
GFXBench 4.0 — Car Chase Offscreen (Fps)	7957	7988
GFXBench 4.0 — Manhattan (Fps)	3698	3699
GFXBench 4.0 — T-Rex (Fps)	3337	3359
3DMark Fire Strike — Graphics Score	2043	1932
Geekbench — OpenCL		82144

Feature comparison

	AMD Radeon R9 280	AMD Radeon HD 7950
Architecture	GCN 1. 0	GCN 1.0
Codename	Tahiti	Tahiti
Design	AMD Radeon R9 200 Series	AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series
Issue date	March 4, 2014	January 31, 2012
Price at first issue date	$279	$449
Place in the rating	302	398
Type	Desktop	Desktop
Boost core clock	933MHz	1250MHz
Floating point performance	3. 344 gflops	2.867 gflops
Process	28 nm	28nm
Number of shaders	1792	1792
Stream Processors	1792	1792
Texturing speed	104.5 GTexel/s	89.6 GTexel/s
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	300 Watt
Number of transistors	4,313 million	4,313 million
Number of Compute conveyors		28
Video connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
DisplayPort support
Support Dual-link DVI
Eyefinity
HDMI
VGA
Number of Eyefinity Displays		6
Tire	PCIe 3. 0	PCIe 3.0 x16
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275mm	267mm
Additional power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin	2x 6-pin
DirectX	12	11
OpenGL	4.5	4.5
Vulcan
Maximum memory size	3GB	3GB
Memory bandwidth	240 GB/s	240 GB/s
Memory bus width	384 Bit	384 Bit
Memory frequency	1250MHz	1250MHz
Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
AMD Eyefinity
CrossFire
DDMA audio
FreeSync
HD3D
LiquidVR
TressFX
TrueAudio
Unified Video Decoder (UVD)
AppAcceleration
PowerTune
ZeroCore

AMD Radeon R9 280

Radeon HD 7950 In the new livery

Content

• Part 1 — theory and architecture
• Part 2 — Practical acquaintance
  • Contiguration0027
  • Synthetic test results
• Part 3 — Game test results and conclusions

Basic detailed study of the AMD Radeon R9 280 based on the commercially available Sapphire card.

References

• Gaming Graphics Card Buyer’s Guide
• AMD Radeon HD 7xxx/Rx Reference
• Nvidia Geforce GTX 6xx/7xx Reference
• Full HD Video Streaming Capabilities

Subject : Commercially available 3D graphics accelerator (video card) Sapphire Radeon R9 280 Dual-X OC Edition 3072 MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI-E

Manufacturer information : Sapphire Technology (trademark) founded in 2001 in Hong Kong as a subsidiary of the largest concern for the production of PC components — PC Partner. Focused on the production of products based on ATI cores (graphic processors) (subsequently incorporated into AMD). Headquartered in Hong Kong, production in China. The largest manufacturer of accelerators of the Radeon series. It also produces system (motherboard) boards based on AMD chipsets, as well as mini-PCs and other products.

Theory and Architecture

With the launch of the Radeon R7/R9 series in October 2013, AMD began the process of renaming some of its older Radeon 7000 family solutions as only slightly accelerated versions in the new series: R7 200 and R9 200. In our theoretical material on the new line of graphic solutions from AMD’s Radeon R7 and R9 families, we cited only those models that were supposed to be released in the nearest time to the then announcement.

But in the future, other Radeon video cards with modified characteristics were released, not presented in that review material. The first re-released models were the Radeon R9 280X and R7 260X (Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7790, respectively), then the models of the HD 7800 sub-series were reborn as the R9 270 and R7 265, and the HD 7770 found a new life under the name R7 250X. Thus, AMD has re-released almost all the main models from the previous generation of the Radeon HD 7000 in the new series. Except for one — the Radeon HD 7950, the original version of which we considered more than two years ago.

And so, at the very beginning of March of this year, AMD refreshed in the R9 200 series an analogue of the board based on the stripped-down Tahiti chip — it was given the free name Radeon R9 280 until then. The spring model R9 280 filled the same niche in the line as and its direct predecessor, standing between full-fledged models based on Tahiti and Pitcairn chips, R9 280X and R9 270X, respectively. In fact, this is the third release of the stripped-down Tahiti — after the usual HD 7950, the HD 7950 «Boost» entered the market, now known as the Radeon R9 280. as much as 8 MHz. Otherwise, it’s still the same Tahiti Pro, with 28 GCNs and 32 active ROPs. The same applies to the memory bus, as well as its size and speed. The board is equipped with 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, running at 5 GHz and having a 384-bit bus, which gives a decent 240 GB / s of bandwidth.

However, there is one more change — a different value for the typical power consumption of the new board. While the Radeon HD 7950 Boost had a typical power draw of 225W, the Radeon R9 280 is set to 250W. It is unlikely that this was required to increase stability or install a GPU with a higher voltage, it is more likely that this was done to achieve higher operating frequencies both in the factory version and in overclocking conditions, because the Boost version of the Radeon HD 7950 could hit the barrier on energy consumption.

AMD believes that the new Radeon R9 280 delivers adequate performance in all of the latest games at 1920×1080 and above. The spring novelty gives players high performance and a very good combination of performance and price. And compared to its main competitor, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 760, Radeon’s primary advantage should be higher performance for about the same money, as always for AMD graphics cards.

Since the model of the Radeon R9 280 video card under consideration is almost the same Radeon HD 7950, also based on the Tahiti GPU with reduced execution units, it will be useful to read detailed information about the company’s previous solutions before reading this material:

• [ 12/02/13] AMD Radeon R9 270: Curacao is far from Hawaii, but close to the mass consumer
• [10/28/13] AMD Radeon R9 290X: Reach out to Hawaii! Get new heights of speed and functionality
• [10/08/13] AMD Radeon R7 and R9 — an updated line of video cards: new families yet without their flagship R Unified, with an array of common processors for stream processing of numerous types of data: vertices, pixels, etc. Hardware support for DirectX DirectX 11.2, including Shader Model 5.0 shader model Memory bus 30855 -bit: six 64-bit wide controllers with GDDR5 memory support 0851
  28 GCN Compute Units, including 112 SIMD cores, consisting of a total of 1792 floating point ALUs (integer and float formats supported, with FP32 and FP64 precision) Texture units support for trilinear and anisotropic filtering for all texture formats ROP units (ROP) 32 ROP units with support for anti-aliasing modes with the possibility of programmable sampling of more than 16 samples per pixel, including with FP16 or FP32 framebuffer format . Peak performance up to 32 samples per clock, and in colorless mode (Z only) — 128 samples per clock
  2 The recommended price of for the US market is $249 (for Russia — 9990 rubles)

  previous decisions. The video card did not have to be called a non-circular figure, it was simply deprived of the “X” suffix, which belongs to the older R9 280X model. It turned out so successfully, obviously, because the place for the junior modification on the Tahiti chip was provided in advance.

  The Radeon R9 280 occupies a position in the mid-price range, between the R9 270X and R9 280X — between full-fledged models based on Tahiti and Pitcairn chips, and in terms of performance it is very close to the Radeon HD 7950 Boost model known from the previous generation. The differences from last year’s board are slightly higher clock speeds and typical power consumption levels, but the difference is small. The recommended price for the Radeon R9 280 currently corresponds to the price of a similar solution from a competitor in the same price segment — Geforce GTX 760, which is the main rival for the new Radeon model.

  The new product from the Radeon R9 series, which we are considering today, like the older modification R9 280X, has three gigabytes of GDDR5 memory, which is quite enough for resolutions above 1920 × 1080 (1200) pixels, even in modern demanding games at maximum graphics quality settings. In fact, this is almost an ideal amount for a video card of the middle and upper middle price ranges, because there is simply no point in installing more fast and expensive GDDR5 memory. Perhaps even 1.5 GB would be enough for some games, but this does not apply to high resolutions and multi-monitor systems.

  The specifications of the reference Radeon R9 280 board, the design of the board and its cooling devices do not differ from those of the Radeon HD 7950 Boost, but this is not too important, since all AMD partners immediately offered their own options with original PCB design and construction cooling systems, as well as solutions with a higher frequency of the GPU. At the same time, the video card requires additional power to be connected via one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors, it has two DVI outputs and one HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 each.

  Architectural and functional features

  We have been talking about the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture for a long time and in as much detail as possible using the example of the Tahiti chip, which is also used in the Radeon R9 280. All modern solutions of the company, and even the newest graphic The Hawaii chip differs from Tahiti only in a larger number of execution units and some modifications in terms of computing capabilities (in the form of support for more concurrent instruction streams), support for some additional DirectX 11.2 features, and improved AMD PowerTune technology.

  And other solutions differ from Tahiti and generally only quantitatively. The basic building block of the architecture is the GCN Compute Block, from which all AMD GPUs are assembled. Such a computing unit has a dedicated local data storage for exchanging data or expanding the local register stack, as well as a first-level cache memory with the ability to read and write, and a full-fledged texture pipeline with sampling and filtering units, divided into subsections, each of which works on its own thread commands. Each of the GCN blocks deals with planning and distribution of work independently. Let’s see what was cut in this modification of Tahiti:

  The Radeon R9 280 can be seen as a stripped-down version of the R9 280X, since the graphics processors of both models are similar in characteristics, except that four computing devices were turned off in the younger one (out of 32 computing devices, only 28 remained active), which gives we have 1792 streaming cores instead of 2048 cores for the full version. The same applies to texture units, their number has decreased from 128 TMU to 112 TMU, since each GCN unit has four texture units.

  But the rest of the chip was not cut, all 32 ROPs remained active, as well as the memory controllers. Therefore, the Tahiti graphics processor in the Radeon R9 280 version has the same 384-bit memory bus, assembled from six 64-bit channels, as the older R9 280X solution.

  The operating frequencies of the video card of the new model are slightly higher than those offered in the Radeon HD 7950 Boost. That is, the graphics processor in the new model received a slightly increased turbo frequency of 933 MHz, but the video memory of the new product operates at the usual frequency of 5 GHz. The use of sufficiently fast GDDR5 memory with a 384-bit bus gives a relatively high bandwidth of 240 GB / s.

  Quite naturally, the Radeon R9 280 graphics card supports exactly the same technologies as other models based on this GPU. We have repeatedly written about all the new technologies supported by AMD graphics chips in the corresponding reviews. In particular, the solution reviewed today has support for the new Mantle graphics API, which helps to more efficiently use the hardware capabilities of AMD GPUs, since Mantle is not limited by the shortcomings of the existing graphics APIs: OpenGL and DirectX. To do this, a thinner software shell is used between the game engine and GPU hardware resources, similar to how it has long been done on game consoles.

  This API was developed at AMD with input from leading game developers Dice, and Battlefield 4 was the first game to use Mantle, showing significant performance gains from Direct3D to Mantle. Several companies have already become interested in the new API, including: Crytek, Rebellion, Oxide, Nixxes Software and Cloud Imperium Games, so the number of game engines and projects with Mantle support is gradually increasing.

  We will not repeat a lot of information about AMD technologies that were introduced and improved in the new video chips of the Radeon HD 7000 line and then in the Radeon R7 / R9, all this is described in more detail in the corresponding review articles: Radeon HD 7970 and Radeon R9 290X.

  Theoretical performance evaluation, market positioning and conclusions

  In this part of the material, we traditionally briefly and preliminary evaluate the performance of new solutions based on theoretical data and testing conducted by the manufacturer itself. Judging by the theoretical figures, the Radeon R9 280 should lag behind the older R9 280X by up to 15%, and be approximately at the level of the model of the previous Radeon HD 79 line.50 Boost, based on exactly the same Tahiti chip with the same number of active functional units.

  Theoretically, everything is clear with the performance of the new AMD solution — the Radeon R9 280 should be identical to the Radeon HD 7950 Boost in terms of all speed characteristics, judging by very similar specifications. And the new product should lag behind the older R9 280X based on a full-fledged Tahiti chip by about 15%. Let’s take a look at the preliminary performance indicators of the new AMD motherboard relative to the older model and the competitor’s solution in real applications. First, let’s take the popular 3DMark test suite and the FireStrike test so beloved by the company — in it, Radeon solutions always look very impressive:

  In this particular benchmark, according to the company’s own measurements, the speed of the new Radeon R9 280 is about 13% slower than the Radeon R9 280X, which is close to the theoretical difference of 15%. But Nvidia’s competitor in terms of price is clearly losing to AMD’s spring new product, yielding to it by up to 20% (we remind you that this is the data of an interested party that needs to be checked).

  But this is just a pseudo-game test from a synthetic benchmark, even if it is generally recognized. And what does AMD do in games? Let’s compare the new product only with the competing Nvidia model in several (modern and not so) gaming applications used for testing in AMD’s laboratories at once:

  If you believe the numbers on the diagrams, then under the name Radeon R9 280, a rather attractive video card in terms of price and performance ratio has entered the market, outperforming the comparable price Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 in almost all games. The latest Radeon model is a very strong contender for victory in its class. We’ll be sure to test the performance of AMD’s solution in later parts of this article, but it’s safe to say that the Radeon R9 graphics card introduced in March280 has become one of the most profitable offers in this price niche — users should be satisfied with its speed, obtained for relatively little money.

  Speaking of money. At the time of the launch of the novelty on the market, AMD set the recommended price for the Radeon R9 280 equal to $279. Although in the spring even this price was only an approximate level, because the real retail prices for AMD video cards of this price range clearly exceeded the recommended values ​​(the same R9 280X was sold for more than $400 even in the USA). At the time of the announcement, there were no video cards of this model produced by the company’s partners on the market yet, they appeared on sale only after a couple of weeks. However, the release was soon launched, and by the time the article was published, the spring novelty was already on sale.

  AMD calls the Nvidia Geforce GTX 760 as the main competitor for the Radeon R9 280, although in fact it should have been somewhere between the GTX 760 and GTX 770, since at the time of the announcement of AMD’s $279 board, the same GTX 760 cost $249, while the faster GTX 770 was priced at $329. It seems that AMD quickly realized that such a price would be too high, because with the performance of the Radeon HD 7950, there would simply be no one to sell it at $279. Yes, this solution is slightly faster than the Geforce GTX 760, but the speed advantage of the AMD board is less than the difference in the recommended price at the start. Therefore, it was quite logical to reduce the recommended price to the level of a competitor — $ 249, and now the Radeon R9 280 already has a clear advantage. It remains to be added that at the moment the R9 280 is already sold at retail at prices below the recommended one, which gives it additional advantages.

  After we got acquainted with the characteristics and theoretical capabilities of the video card model Radeon R9 280, it’s time to move on to practice. The next part of our article is devoted to the study of the rendering speed of the new AMD video card in the usual set of synthetic tests, in which we will compare the performance of the new product from the mid-price segment with other motherboards from AMD and its competitor.

  AMD Radeon R9 280 — Part 2: Features of maps and synthetic tests →

  R2

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TiGeForce RTX 3080 12GBGeForce RTX 3080GeForce RTX 3070 TiGeForce RTX 3070GeForce RTX 3060 TiGeForce RTX 3060 rev. 2GeForce RTX 3060GeForce RTX 3050GeForce RTX 2080 TiGeForce RTX 2080 SuperGeForce RTX 2080GeForce RTX 2070 SuperGeForce RTX 2070GeForce RTX 2060 SuperGeForce RTX 2060GeForce GTX 1660 TiGeForce GTX 1660 SuperGeForce GTX 1660GeForce GTX 1650 SuperGeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6GeForce GTX 1650 rev.3GeForce GTX 1650 rev.2GeForce GTX 1650GeForce GTX 1630GeForce GTX 1080 TiGeForce GTX 1080GeForce GTX 1070 TiGeForce GTX 1070GeForce GTX 1060GeForce GTX 1060 3GBGeForce GTX 1050 TiGeForce GTX 1050 3GBGeForce GTX 1050GeForce GT 1030GeForce GTX Titan XGeForce GTX 980 TiGeForce GTX 980GeForce GTX 970GeForce GTX 960GeForce GTX 950GeForce GTX TitanGeForce GTX 780 TiGeForce GTX 780GeForce GTX 770GeForce GTX 760GeForce GTX 750 TiGeForce GTX 750GeForce GT 740GeForce GT 730GeForce GTX 690GeForce GTX 680GeForce GTX 670GeForce GTX 660 TiGeForce GTX 660GeForce GTX 650 Ti BoostGeForce GTX 650 TiGeForce GTX 650GeForce GT 640 rev.2GeForce GT 640GeForce GT 630 rev.2GeForce GT 630GeForce GTX 590GeForce GTX 580GeForce GTX 570GeForce GTX 560 TiGeForce GTX 560GeForce GTX 550 TiGeForce GT 520GeForce GTX 480GeForce GTX 470GeForce GTX 465GeForce GTX 460 SEGeForce GTX 460 1024MBGeForce GTX 460 768MBGeForce GTS 450GeForce GT 440 GDDR5GeForce GT 440 GDDR3GeForce GT 430GeForce GT 420GeForce GTX 295GeForce GTX 285GeForce GTX 280GeForce GTX 275GeForce GTX 260 rev. 2GeForce GTX 260GeForce GTS 250GeForce GTS 240GeForce GT 240GeForce GT 230GeForce GT 220GeForce 210Geforce 205GeForce GTS 150GeForce GT 130GeForce GT 120GeForce G100GeForce 9800 GTX+GeForce 9800 GTXGeForce 9800 GTSGeForce 9800 GTGeForce 9800 GX2GeForce 9600 GTGeForce 9600 GSO (G94)GeForce 9600 GSOGeForce 9500 GTGeForce 9500 GSGeForce 9400 GTGeForce 9400GeForce 9300GeForce 8800 ULTRAGeForce 8800 GTXGeForce 8800 GTS Rev2GeForce 8800 GTSGeForce 8800 GTGeForce 8800 GS 768MBGeForce 8800 GS 384MBGeForce 8600 GTSGeForce 8600 GTGeForce 8600 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  Reviews of video cards AMD Radeon R9 280:

  • Review and testing of the video card Sapphire Dual-X R9 280 OC With Boost

    Sapphire Dual-X R9 280 OC With Boost

  • Review of the video card HIS R9 280 IceQ X2 OC and testing Radeon R9 280

    HIS R9 280 IceQ X2 OC

  from GeForce GTX 770 and Radeon HD 7950 to RTX 2070 SUPER and RX 5700 XT / Video Cards

  The gaming graphics market today is on the cusp of a big change. NVIDIA is preparing to release consumer varieties of Ampere silicon, and AMD will soon break into the upper price segment, still occupied by the «greens», with accelerators on a large Navi chip. Also, don’t forget that the next generation of game consoles are on the way — PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and these will be the first consoles to receive hardware-accelerated ray tracing features, and in general they will be much stronger than their predecessors. All this means that not only the flagship offerings, but also the video cards of the middle and medium-high price tier shines with a major increase in performance. Unless AMD will disturb the existing Radeon RX 5000 lineup, which, with the exception of the very top, is already fully equipped (although some intermediate upgrade may occur, following the example of the Radeon RX 500 family).

  Of course, the hopes that AMD will bring back the golden days, when the GeForce and Radeon brands competed on equal terms in the entire performance range, and the gaming FPS was rapidly becoming cheaper, more than once turned into a complete disappointment. But now, it seems, the “reds” have every chance to push, if not the latest accelerators on Ampere chips, then at least the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. And most importantly, this is no longer so important: since the prices of top models have risen to $ 700 and more, for most gamers sitting behind screens with a resolution of 1920 × 1080, such video cards are only of theoretical interest. Another thing is accelerators one step lower, which have recently occupied a niche from $400 to $500. It was to them that all the attention was riveted last year, when the Radeon RX 5700 XT appeared, and NVIDIA in response was forced to almost completely redraw the GeForce RTX 20 series. These models, and before that their predecessors, have always enjoyed well-deserved popularity, because they are sold for quite feasible amounts, and a serious performance margin even at a relatively low resolution is now more than ever in demand by new resource-intensive games like, for example, Red Dead Redemption 2.

  It is precisely such devices that manufacturers combine with the term Performance (unlike the flagship Enthusiast) that we will deal with in the second part of the retrospective review (if someone missed it, here is a link to the previous part about flagship accelerators). In it, we intend to cover the brightest models presented in eight years — since NVIDIA introduced the Kepler logic, and AMD introduced the GCN architecture. We will omit the earlier devices of the GeForce 500 and Radeon HD 6000 series again due to a severe shortage of RAM in most of them.

  When selecting test participants, we had to be guided by several criteria. First of all, the position of the device in the NVIDIA product line. It is NVIDIA, because the «green» numbers of all the models we are interested in end with 70, and among the «red» analogues, the range of which is constantly changing, we put forward devices that are close in speed and price. Another sign that all video cards of the test pool have in common is that almost all of them were based on second-tier chips of their time: Gx-104/204 from NVIDIA or Tahiti, and then Hawaii/Grenada from AMD. Even the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Radeon RX 5700 XT don’t stand out from the crowd, as the Vega family has the flagship Radeon VII product, and the Navi line will soon receive a natural continuation as well. The only exception was the GeForce RTX 2070, which NVIDIA spared the TU104 chip, although the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is already based on it.

  All listed devices are priced between $329-500 (the only exception on the graph is the GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition, which NVIDIA priced at $100 over the recommended amount), although you can see that these cards were the cheapest between 2013 and 2016, when prices were under pressure from intense competition between NVIDIA and AMD. Since then, even the «red» accelerators, which are traditionally considered the choice of economical gamers, have steadily risen in price. So let’s find out whether the increase in prices is justified by the corresponding increase in performance, or, conversely, as we have already stated for flagship models, new devices give more FPS, but each frame per second is now paid at an increased rate.

  ⇡#

  How we tested

  Before we start analyzing the test results, it is worth explaining once again why we chose the games whose names you will see on the diagrams as benchmarks, and not any others. With the flagship models behind us this time around, the issue of scaling performance across devices that are seven years of rapid progress (like the GeForce GTX 680 and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti) is no longer so acute. Nevertheless, all the obstacles that initially stood in the way of comparative testing remained in place.

  The first difficulty is related to the extremely limited amount of memory on board old video cards. So, the standard version of the GeForce GTX 770, participating in the second series of the review, has only two gigabytes of VRAM, while the Radeon HD 7950 and Radeon R9 280X have three. In the comments to the last article, readers noticed that some older models have varieties with twice the amount of memory, but we are bound by the capabilities of the reference devices, which make up the lion’s share of the test fund. At the same time, any modern game eats up at least 4 GB, but not always its appetites can be tempered with reduced detail settings. For the same reason, we had to limit all tests to screen mode 1920 × 1080, after all, and resolution is always positively related to VRAM consumption: the larger the picture, the more memory it requires.

  The next obstacle was the ability of the game engine to unleash the potential of modern accelerators, increasing the frame rate beyond a hundred or even two hundred FPS. This is exactly what is required in a situation where older devices start from low positions, and we have reduced the load on the GPU in order to keep within 2-3 GB of VRAM. But fortunately, among the games that we constantly use for GPU tests, several projects — Battlefield V, Borderlands 3 DiRT Rally 2.0, Far Cry 5 and Strange Brigade — have the right properties. However, we do not guarantee that the current versions of NVIDIA and AMD drivers, as well as the games themselves, are well optimized for legacy silicon. To compensate for this factor, we added several old games from 2011-2013 to the benchmarks collection — Crysis 2, Metro Last Light and Tomb Raider, and in order to ensure the correct frame rate scaling, we had to, on the contrary, increase the graphic parameters to the maximum and enable resource-intensive full-screen anti-aliasing.

  Medium Current Price (number of proposals) in Moscow retail:
  COMMUNICATIONS	competitors 2 Competitors 2 competitors 2 competitors 9085 — $276(2)	HD 7950 — N/A(0)
  R9 280 — $276(2)	GTX 760 — $212 (as of 06/01/16)

  Games
  Game (in order of release date)	API	Settings, test method	FSAA
  Crysis 2	Direct3D 11	Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool. Max. graphics quality, HD textures	MSAA 4x + Edge AA
  Tomb Raider	Direct3D 11	Built-in benchmark. Max. graphics quality	SSAA 4x
  Metro Last Light	Direct3D 11	Built-in benchmark. Max. graphics quality	SSAA 4x
  Far Cry 5	Direct3D 11	Built-in benchmark. Poor graphics quality	Off
  Strange Brigade	Direct 3D 12/Vulkan	Built-in benchmark. Poor graphics quality	AA Low
  Battlefield V	Direct3D 11/12	OCAT, Liberte mission. Low quality graphics. DXR off, DLSS off	TAA High
  DiRT Rally 2.0	Direct3D 11	Built-in benchmark. Average graphics quality	MSAA 4x + TAA
  Borderlands 3	Direct3D 11/12	Built-in benchmark. Very poor graphics quality	Off

  Despite all the efforts to select games and optimize settings, in the previous, flagship part of the review, we could not avoid scaling artifacts at the end of the timeline — from the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and Radeon VII to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. As a result, we had to exclude a large part of the data from the general performance and FPS cost graphs. For devices of the next price category, which we will focus on today, this problem is not so acute, and the results of most test games, and under different APIs (Direct3D 11, Direct3D 12 and Vulkan), will be taken into account in the conclusion of the review.

  Performance testing in Crysis 2 was done using the timedemo function and the Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool. DiRT Rally 2.0, Far Cry 5, Metro Last Light, and Strange Brigade used the built-in benchmark to test and collect results, while Borderlands 3 and Tomb Raider used the built-in benchmark in conjunction with OCAT. Battlefield V required manual testing with OCAT on a recurring segment of the Liberté mission.

  GPU Software
  

  graphics cards

  graphics cards

  Test stand
  CPU	Intel Core i9-9900K (4.9 GHz, 4.8 GHz in AVX, fixed frequency)
  Motherboard	ASUS MAXIMUS XI APEX
  RAM	G.Skill Trident Z RGB F4-3200C14D-16GTZR, 2 x 8 GB (3200 MHz, CL14)
  ROM	Intel SSD 760p 1024 GB
  Power supply	Corsair AX1200i 1200W
  CPU cooler	Corsair Hydro Series h215i
  Housing	CoolerMaster Test Bench V1. 0
  Monitor	NEC EA244UHD
  Operating system	Windows 10 Pro x64
  AMD
  All	AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.4.2
  NVIDIA GPU Software
  All	NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 445.87

  ⇡#

  Testers

  • AMD Radeon HD 7950 (800/- MHz, 5000 Mbps, 3 GB);
  • AMD Radeon R9 280X (-/1000MHz, 5000Mbps, 4GB);
  • AMD Radeon R9 390 (-/1000MHz, 6000Mbps, 8GB);
  • AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (1156/1471 MHz, 1600 Mbps, 8 GB);
  • AMD Radeon RX 5700XT (1605/1905 MHz, 14000 Mbps, 8 GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (915/980 MHz, 6008 Mbps, 2 GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (1046/1085MHz, 7010Mbps, 2GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (1050/1178 MHz, 7010 Mbps, 4 GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (1506/1683MHz, 8000Mbps, 8GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (1607/1683MHz, 8000Mbps, 8GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (1410/1620MHz, 14000Mbps, 8GB);
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER (1605/1770MHz, 14000Mbps, 8GB).

  Approx. In brackets after the names of the video cards, the base and boost frequencies are indicated according to the specifications of each device. Video cards of non-reference design are brought into line with the reference parameters (or close to the latter), provided that this can be done without manually adjusting the clock frequency curve. Otherwise (GeForce RTX Founders Edition accelerators), manufacturer settings are used.

  ⇡#

  Test results (old games)

  Crysis 2

  The graph with the test results in the first game shows how much easier it is to compare the performance of devices that belong to the same category (albeit a fairly wide one) over time. in this case) by their price and position in the manufacturer’s product line. Over the past eight years, the capabilities of accelerators for enthusiast gamers have grown at a brisk, almost linear pace, and Crysis 2, despite its venerable age, does not hold back performance scaling from the starting positions of the GeForce GTX 670 and Radeon HD 7950 up to GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER and Radeon RX 5700 XT.

  But any conclusions about historical trends will have to be made with great caution — we are no longer talking about the flagship products of NVIDIA and AMD, which reflect the best achievements of the companies. This time we chose for review the models that are closest in terms of overall performance in each time period, but the advantage of a particular device in terms of frame rate does not mean that it is definitely better than its direct competitor, for the reason that the difference in performance during in many cases, it was included in the price of video cards. This question is best answered by the graph of the average cost of FPS, which we will provide at the end of the article.

  However, there are certain expectations associated with the device model numbers in the NVIDIA and AMD nomenclature. In particular, that is why the composition of the test participants is exactly this, and not any other. If we focus on a narrow class of product, as manufacturers understand it, then in Crysis 2 AMD’s finest hour was the Radeon R9 390 (an extremely popular — and for good reason — model of 2015). Up to this point, the game, due to obvious sympathy for the Kepler architecture compared to the first generation of GCN, works better on “green” hardware, and after that it is impossible to hide that AMD, as in the case of the flagship models that we studied in the last part of the study , has faced purely technical obstacles that do not allow it to play with NVIDIA on an equal footing.

  Metro Last Light

  Metro Last Light is a fairly heavy game by today’s standards, and even more so with «honest» full-screen SSAA 4x anti-aliasing. Not surprisingly, in this test, NVIDIA products did not go beyond 125 FPS, while AMD products did not exceed 100 FPS. Here we see that the clashes between the two chipmakers over the course of eight years often ended in conditional parity (especially when adjusted for the price of devices). Indeed, Metro Last Light draws an equal sign between the Radeon R9390 and GeForce GTX 970, and then between the Radeon RX Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1070, and the gap between the GeForce GTX 770 and the Radeon R9 280X narrowed.

  Tomb Raider

  The first game in the relaunched Tomb Raider series from 2013 was the only one among the three older titles we selected that showed AMD devices in the most favorable light. The first video cards based on GCN architecture chips work more efficiently in it than the “green” Kepler chips, and even the huge overclocking of the GeForce GTX 680, which NVIDIA performed in order to get the GTX 770, did not allow the Radeon R9 to take the lead at that time.280X. GeForce GTX 970 and Radeon R9 390 are, by and large, equivalent here, as are rivals in the next pair — GeForce GTX 1070 and Radeon RX Vega 56. Finally, the Radeon RX 5700 XT is not much inferior to the original, not SUPER, version of the GeForce RTX 2070.

  ⇡#

  Test results (new games)

  Battlefield V

  Battlefield V gave us a lot of problems in the first part of the GPU retrospective review: its graphics engine behaves so differently in Direct3D 11 and Direct3D 11 12, especially at the high frame rates that flagship devices develop. Nevertheless, we did not discard this test and, as the results showed, we did the right thing. In the performance range we’re focusing on today, Battlefield V doesn’t hinder FPS scaling when running both versions of the Microsoft Graphics API, while still reflecting the significant difference between Direct3D 11 and Direct3D 12.

  Contrary to popular belief, the transition to Direct3D 12 does not in all cases have a beneficial effect on the performance of AMD accelerators. Last time we noticed that the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition in Battlefield V was faster under Direct3D 11, and now the same thing happened with two related models — the Radeon HD 7950 and the Radeon R9 280X. All other testers benefit to some extent from the migration to the progressive API, and this is clearly seen in the different slopes of the curves in the diagrams.

  As a result, early AMD (Radeon HD 7950 and Radeon R9 280X) and NVIDIA (GeForce GTX 670 and GeForce GTX 770) video cards are swapped depending on the current API, and the GeForce GTX 970 is pulled up to the Radeon R9 390 thanks to Direct3D 12. As we have noted more than once, the latter has the best effect on the results of large AMD chips. Under Direct3D 11 conditions, the Radeon RX Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, on the one hand, and the Radeon RX 5700 XT and GeForce RTX 2070, on the other, showed almost the same result. Thanks to Direct3D 12, these graphics cards are clearly faster.

  In general, we can say that in Battlefield V the “red” accelerators hold up well over an eight-year time period, and if we adjust for the prices of rivals, it is AMD that wins in total.

  Borderlands 3

  Borderlands 3 is another illustration that Direct3D 12 doesn’t always benefit GPU performance. In this game, only the older models of NVIDIA (GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2070 SUPER) and AMD (Radeon RX Vega 56 and Radeon RX 5700 XT) accelerated thanks to the modern API. On Radeon R9290, the change in the software layer had no effect, and relatively low-power video cards only lost FPS.

  Nevertheless, in all the test results of Borderlands 3, it is worth focusing on Direct3D 12, since Direct3D 11 from a certain point simply does not allow scaling performance in accordance with the processing power of the GPU. The new API here almost always plays in favor of AMD. Due to it, the Radeon R9 280X is approaching the GeForce GTX 770, the following two models (Radeon R9290 and Radeon RX Vega 56) were ahead of all their rivals (GeForce GTX 970 and GeForce GTX 1070, GTX 1070 Ti, respectively) and even the Radeon RX 5700 XT caught up with the formally stronger GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER video card.

  DiRT Rally 2.0

  Among the games that we use now or have ever used in the past to compare video cards, there are not many that, in principle, can demonstrate the full range of performance between today’s powerful video cards and their eight-year-old predecessors . DiRT 2.0 is one such project, but it has a specific problem that will not allow the results of this benchmark to be included in the final graphs and tables. For some reason AMD accelerators based on the Hawaii chip (Radeon R9 models290/390) are slower here than the Radeon R9 7950/7970 and Radeon R9 280/280 X.

  Otherwise, DiRT 2. 0 placed the old and modern video cards from the two manufacturers according to their average performance, which we installed at the time and we will assure you again in the final section of the retrospective review. Here, AMD’s early GCN architecture devices, the Radeon R9 7950 and Radeon R9 280, outperform their rivals the GeForce GTX 670 and GeForce GTX 770 in frame rates, while the Radeon RX Vega 56 sits in between the GeForce GTX 1070 and GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. Finally, the Radeon RX 5700 XT has a slight advantage over the GeForce RTX 2070.

  Far Cry 5

  The results of all benchmarks of video cards in Far Cry 5 also look quite typical, but again with the exception of the Radeon R9 390 — the difference between the latter and the Radeon R9 280X is too small. However, in this case, this is not due to the shortage of frame rates in the Radeon R9 390 (it is on the same level with the GeForce GTX 970), but the unexpectedly high results of accelerators based on Tahiti chips — Radeon HD 7950 and Radeon R9 280X. More recent models are in their usual places, with the Radeon RX Vega 56 next to the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, and the Radeon RX 5700 XT next to the GeForce RTX 2070.

  Strange Brigade

  Strange Brigade is a rare game that gives you the choice not between two versions of the Microsoft API, but between Direct3D 12 and Vulkan. The latter generally provides higher performance, but not always for the video cards from which it is customary to expect. Vulkan in Strange Brigade favors older AMD models (Radeon HD 7950 and Radeon R9 280X) and NVIDIA accelerators starting with GeForce GTX 1070. For more powerful AMD devices (Radeon R9 390, Radeon RX Vega 56 and Radeon RX 5700 XT) along with GeForce GTX 970 it is useless, and the GeForce GTX 670 and GeForce GTX 770 only hurt.

  Strange Brigade, true to its reputation, is more of a «red» than a «green» project. Three early AMD models (Radeon HD 7950, Radeon R9 280X, and Radeon R9 390) outperform their closest rivals (GeForce GTX 670, GeForce GTX 770, and GeForce GTX 970) in FPS, especially under Vulkan. But the Radeon RX Vega 56 and Radeon RX 5700 XT perform better in Direct3D 12 conditions. The former is ahead of the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti in any case, but under Direct3D 12 the difference is greater. In turn, the Radeon RX 5700 XT under Vulkan is inferior to the GeForce RTX 2070, but thanks to Direct3D 12 it is able to catch up.

  ⇡#

  Conclusions

  Just like in the first part of the article on top AMD and NVIDIA video cards, we placed the benchmark results of several games on the summary chart and drew average frame rate lines through the points of individual devices. But this time around, we managed to avoid the performance scaling artifacts that plagued flagship testing in most games. All projects were included in the final calculations, and under different APIs, with the exception of DiRT 2.0 and Far Cry 5, in which there is no expected distance between AMD accelerators on Tahiti and Hawaii chips, and Borderlands 3 in Direct3D 11 mode, where performance growth is shackled after Radeon RX Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1070.

  Looking at the graph, we realized that we didn’t make a mistake either in the selection of video cards for comparison, or in the list of test games. The products of each of the two manufacturers lined up in a line, with competing models in predictable positions. All this means that, even if the performance of flagship solutions stalls over time — at least in the most popular resolution of 1920 × 1080 — you can be calm for accelerators one step lower in price within $ 400-500. In addition, there is no such gap between the «red» and «green» devices, as in the highest category. Here, NVIDIA has only taken the lead in the past two years with the birth of the GeForce RTX 2070 and GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, but that’s entirely natural given the high starting prices of both models.

  Speaking of prices. Unlike top-end graphics cards, more affordable accelerators have shown a steady decline in the unit cost of gaming performance. On the «red» side, FPS fell 4.26 times inflation-adjusted, and on the «green» side it fell 3. 66 times. Only the GeForce RTX 1070 Ti and GeForce RTX 2070, which in our test is represented by the expensive Founders Edition modification, have strayed off the general downward trajectory. Launched on the market under pressure from the Radeon RX 5700 XT, the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER brought NVIDIA products back on track. Two competing models offer FPS for close amounts — $ 1.9for the Radeon RX 5700 XT and $2.1 for the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, but AMD’s slight advantage in this case is quite balanced by hardware-accelerated ray tracing on NVIDIA chips. The sad thing is that after the GeForce 10 series, gaming video cards do not slow down the rate of performance growth, but the changes in the price of “green”, and with them “red” FPS, frankly, are not striking. It looks like the chipmakers (or one of them, as caustic commentators will surely correct) intend to accustom the public to the idea that it’s time to wean from the «free» increase in speed every two years. If you want to still play without brakes, when the old iron has outlived its useful life, if you please, pay the same amount. The only hope is that Ryzen will someday appear among gaming video cards.

  We have already covered a total of 23 devices introduced between 2012 and 2019 in two series of historical tests. There are models that belong to, perhaps, the most demanded middle price category, whose names in NVIDIA’s nomenclature end in 60 (and, of course, their «red» counterparts). We intend to deal with them next time and sum up the general results of the entire study — do not miss it.

  	Issue date	Average frame rate, FPS	Rec price at release, $ (excluding tax)	Rec price adjusted for inflation, $ 2012	$/FPS	$’2012/FPS
  AMD Radeon HD 7950	January 2012	56	450	450	8.1	8.1
  AMD Radeon R9 280X	August 2013	67	299	295	4. 5	4.4
  AMD Radeon R9 390	June 2015	107	329	319	3.1	3
  AMD Radeon RX Vega 56	August 2017	155	399	374	2.6	2.4
  AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT	July 2019	192	399	358	2.1	1.9

  	Release date	Average frame rate, FPS	Rec. price at release, $ (excluding tax) 3	Rec.	$/FPS	$’2012/FPS
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670	May 2012	52	400	400	7.7	7.7
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770	May 2013	64	399	393	6.2	6.1
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970	September 2014	92	329	319	3.