AMD Radeon R9 280
VS
AMD Radeon RX 480
AMD Radeon R9 280
VS
AMD Radeon RX 480

General info

The main nomenclature characteristics of video cards AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480. Pay attention to the position in the performance rating to choose the best one.

237
Place in performance rating
153
no data
Value for money (0-100)
49.01
GCN 1.0
Architecture
Polaris
Tahiti
Code name
Ellesmere
Desktop
Type
Desktop
4 March 2014 (7 years ago)
Release date
29 June 2016 (5 years ago)
$279
Launch price (MSRP)
$229
$305 (1.1x MSRP)
Price now
$480 (2.1x MSRP)
reference
Design
reference
no data
GCN generation
4th Gen
10.12
Value for money
23.23
Tahiti
GPU code name
Polaris 10 Ellesmere
Desktop
Market segment
Desktop

Technical specs

Choose the best graphics card between AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480 based on manufacturing process, power consumption, and base frequency and overclocking potential of the GPU.

1792
Pipelines
2304
no data
Core clock speed
1120 MHz
933 MHz
Boost Clock
1266 MHz
4,313 million
Transistor count
5,700 million
28 nm
Manufacturing process technology
14 nm
200 Watt
Power consumption (TDP)
150 Watt
104.5
Texture fill rate
182.3
3,344 gflops
Floating-point performance
5,834 gflops
no data
Compute units
36
1792
Pipelines / CUDA cores
2304
933 MHz
Boost clock speed
1266 MHz
4,313 million
Number of transistors
5,700 million
200 Watt
Thermal design power (TDP)
150 Watt

Compatibility, dimensions and requirements

Additional technical information, does not greatly affect the performance rating when comparing the AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480.

PCIe 3.0 x16
Interface
PCIe 3.0 x16
275 mm
Length
241 mm
1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin
Supplementary power connectors
1x 6-pin
PCIe 3.0
Bus support
n/a
no data
Bridgeless CrossFire
1

Memory

Graphics card memory is used to store calculations. Modern software and 3D games require more and faster memory. The higher these parameters, the more productive the chip. The difference in these characteristics AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480 can be seen in this section.

GDDR5
Memory type
GDDR5
3 GB
Maximum RAM amount
4 GB
384 Bit
Memory bus width
256 Bit
1250 MHz
Memory clock speed
2000 MHz
240 GB/s
Memory bandwidth
224 GB/s
no data
Shared memory
-

Video outputs and ports

The difference between the interfaces and ports of video cards AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480, the size and number of monitors.

2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
Display Connectors
1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
1
Eyefinity
1
+
HDMI
2.0
-
DisplayPort support
1.4HDR

Technologies

The difference between AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480 is the additional functionality.

-
AppAcceleration
n/a
1
CrossFire
1
no data
FRTC
1
1
FreeSync
+
+
HD3D
n/a
1
LiquidVR
1
-
PowerTune
+
1
TressFX
1
+
TrueAudio
n/a
-
ZeroCore
+
no data
VCE
+
+
DDMA audio
no data
-
Enduro
n/a
+
UVD
+
no data
DisplayPort 1.3 HBR / 1.4 HDR Ready
+

API support

The difference in supported APIs is AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480. Hardware support (API) is not considered in synthetic benchmarks and performance tests.

DirectX® 12
DirectX
DirectX® 12
4.6
OpenGL
4.5
+
Vulkan
+
5.1
Shader Model
6.4
1.2
OpenCL
2.0
-
Mantle
n/a

Gaming performance

Select form the list the required name to identify gaming performance for AMD Radeon R9 280 and AMD Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. The result shows how fast the game will run and whether it can be run on this computer. The different monitor resolutions – from low to 4K – are used for testing. Find out is the AMD Radeon R9 280 or AMD Radeon RX 480 good for gaming.


low
1280x720
med.
1920x1080
high
1920x1080
ultra
1920x1080
QHD
2560x1440
4K
3840x2160
Horizon Zero Dawn (2020) AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon RX 480
Death Stranding (2020) AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon RX 480
F1 2020 (2020) AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon RX 480
Gears Tactics (2020) AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon RX 480 104 65.8 51.6 32.3 17.2
Doom Eternal (2020) AMD Radeon R9 280
AMD Radeon RX 480
Legend
5 Stutter – Insufficient data. Similar graphics cards stutter, the game is likely to show a low frame rate. There will be some lags.
May Stutter – Insufficient data. Similar graphics cards stutter, the game is likely to show a low frame rate. There will be some lags.
30 Fluent – According to the results of benchmarks the game should run at 25 frames per second (fps)
40 Fluent – According to the results of benchmarks the game should run at 35 frames per second (fps)
60 Fluent – According to the results of benchmarks the game should run at 58 frames per second (fps)
May Run Fluently – Insufficient data. Similar graphics cards show a smooth frame rate, comfortable for the game.
? Uncertain – Graphics cards testing has shown that a slower card can provide a high and stable frame rate for the same operation.
Uncertain – The work of the video card in the game is still being studied. Interpolation among analogs is not possible.
The value depicts the average frame rate. Hovering over the value, you can get individual results.

Advantages of AMD Radeon R9 280

Cheaper ($305 (1.1x MSRP) vs $480 (2.1x MSRP))

More memory bandwidth (240 GB/s vs 224 GB/s)

Advantages of AMD Radeon RX 480

13.6% faster in synthetic tests

More pipelines (2304 vs 1792)

Finer manufacturing process technology (14 nm vs 28 nm)

Less power consumption (150 Watt vs 200 Watt)

More maximum RAM amount (4 GB vs 3 GB)

So, AMD Radeon R9 280 or AMD Radeon RX 480?

Judging by the results of synthetic and gaming tests, we recommend AMD Radeon RX 480 .

AMD Radeon R9 280 versus AMD Radeon RX 480 performance benchmarks comparison

User rating

0.0 Out of 0 CpusData Score AMD Radeon R9 280
0.0 Out of 0 CpusData Score AMD Radeon RX 480