Radeon HD 7970 vs Radeon R9 280X

Radeon HD 7970
Memory: 3072Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 22 Dec 2011
Radeon HD 7970
Radeon R9 280X
Memory: 3072Mb GDDR5DESKTOP
Release date: 8 Oct 2013
Radeon R9 280X

Summary

Synthetic performance index

  • Radeon HD 7970
    100%
  • Radeon R9 280X
    101%

Relative performance

Gaming performance index

  • Radeon HD 7970
    100%
  • Radeon R9 280X
    113%

Relative performance

Reasons to consider Radeon HD 7970

Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Supports Mantle
Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Reasons to consider Radeon R9 280X

13% higher gaming performance.
This is a much newer product, it might have better long term support.
Supports Direct3D 12 Async Compute
Supports ReLive (allows game streaming/recording with minimum performance penalty)
Supports Mantle
Based on an outdated architecture (AMD GCN), there may be no performance optimizations for current games and applications

Radeon R9 280X

HWBench recommends Radeon R9 280X

The Radeon R9 280X is the better performing card based on the game benchmark suite used (8 combinations of games and resolutions).


Specifications

Core Configuration

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 280X
GPU NameTahiti (Tahiti XT)vsTahiti (Tahiti XTL)
Fab Process28 nmvs28 nm
Die Size352 mm²vs352 mm²
Transistors4,313 millionvs4,313 million
Shaders2048vs2048
Compute Units32vs32
Core clock925 MHzvs850 MHz
ROPs32vs32
TMUs128vs128

Memory Configuration

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 280X
Memory TypeGDDR5vsGDDR5
Bus Width384 bitvs384 bit
Memory Speed1375 MHz
5500 MHz effective
vs1500 MHz
6000 MHz effective
Memory Size3072 Mbvs3072 Mb

Additional details

Radeon HD 7970Radeon R9 280X
TDP250 wattsvs250 watts
Release Date22 Dec 2011vs8 Oct 2013

Raw Performance comparison

Pixel Rate

  • Radeon HD 7970
    29.60 GP/s
  • Radeon R9 280X
    27.20 GP/s

GigaPixels - higher is better

Texel Rate

  • Radeon HD 7970
    118.00 GT/s
  • Radeon R9 280X
    109.00 GT/s

GigaTexels - higher is better

Memory bandwidth

  • Radeon HD 7970
    264.00 GB/s
  • Radeon R9 280X
    288.00 GB/s

GB/s - higher is better

Single precision performance

  • Radeon HD 7970
    3789.00 GFLOPs
  • Radeon R9 280X
    3482.00 GFLOPs

GFLOPs - higher is better

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark 11

  • Radeon HD 7970
    10760
  • Radeon R9 280X
    10960

Points (higher is better)

Game benchmarks

Battlefield 4

DX11, Ultra Quality,2x MSAA,16x AF, HBAO

  • Radeon HD 7970
    67
  • Radeon R9 280X
    72

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra Quality,DDOD, FX AA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    62
  • Radeon R9 280X
    69

FPS (higher is better)

Crysis 3

DX11,Very High Quality, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    40
  • Radeon R9 280X
    42

FPS (higher is better)

Medal Of Honor Warfighter

DX11, Ultra Quality, 4xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    60
  • Radeon R9 280X
    67

FPS (higher is better)

Metro Last Light

DX11, AAA standard, 16xAF, Motion Blur normal, Tesselation normal

  • Radeon HD 7970
    43
  • Radeon R9 280X
    50

FPS (higher is better)

Bioshock Infinite

DX11, Ultra, DDOD, FXAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    39
  • Radeon R9 280X
    48

FPS (higher is better)

Grand Theft Auto V

DX11, Max Details, 16:1 AF, 2xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    39
  • Radeon R9 280X
    47

FPS (higher is better)

Grand Theft Auto V

DX11, Max Details, 16:1 AF, 2xMSAA

  • Radeon HD 7970
    54
  • Radeon R9 280X
    63

FPS (higher is better)