Radeon R9 280X: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Radeon R9 280X provides acceptable gaming and benchmark performance at 15.15% of a leader's which is GeForce RTX 4090.

Summary

AMD started Radeon R9 280X sales 8 October 2013 at a recommended price of $299 . This is a desktop graphics card based on a GCN 1.0 architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamer market. 3 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at are supplied, and together with 384 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 288 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is a dual-slot graphics card attached via PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 275 mm. 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 250 Watt.

Primary details

Some basic facts about Radeon R9 280X: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in the ranking352
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation5.57
Power efficiency4.15of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)
GPU code nameTahiti
Market segmentDesktop
Designreference
Release date8 October 2013 (11 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$299 of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

Radeon R9 280X's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon R9 280X's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores2048of 21760 (GeForce RTX 5090)
Boost clock speed1000 MHzof 3599 MHz (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors4,313 millionof 208,000 million (B200 SXM 192 GB)
Manufacturing process technology28 nmof 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)250 Wattof 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate128.0of 2,554 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Floating-point processing power4.096 TFLOPSof 109.7 (GeForce RTX 5090)
ROPs32of 192 (Radeon RX 7900 XTX)
TMUs128of 1280 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of Radeon R9 280X and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Bus supportPCIe 3.0
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16
Length275 mm
Width2-slot
Supplementary power connectors1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on Radeon R9 280X: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory typeGDDR5
Maximum RAM amount3 GBof 294912 (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width384 Bitof 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bandwidth288 GB/sof 5,171 GB/s (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Shared memory-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon R9 280X. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
Eyefinity+
HDMI+
DisplayPort support+

Supported technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by Radeon R9 280X. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration+
CrossFire+
FreeSync+
HD3D+
LiquidVR+
TressFX+
TrueAudio+
UVD+
DDMA audio+

API compatibility

APIs supported by Radeon R9 280X, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectXDirectX® 12
Shader Model5.1
OpenGL4.6
OpenCL1.2
Vulkan+

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of Radeon R9 280X. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

R9 280X 15.15

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

R9 280X 5837

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

R9 280X 10792

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

R9 280X 33045

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

R9 280X 8343

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

R9 280X 52117

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

R9 280X 285376

Unigine Heaven 3.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.

R9 280X 95

Unigine Heaven 4.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.

R9 280X 1017

Gaming performance

Let's see how good Radeon R9 280X is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

Full HD64
4K31

Cost per frame, $

1080p4.67
4K9.65

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077 24−27

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 30−35
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
Battlefield 5 45−50
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−33
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Far Cry 5 35−40
Far Cry New Dawn 40−45
Forza Horizon 4 95−100
Hitman 3 27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn 75−80
Metro Exodus 50−55
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 45−50
Watch Dogs: Legion 75−80

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 30−35
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
Battlefield 5 45−50
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−33
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Far Cry 5 35−40
Far Cry New Dawn 40−45
Forza Horizon 4 95−100
Hitman 3 27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn 75−80
Metro Exodus 50−55
Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 110
Watch Dogs: Legion 75−80

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 30−35
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 24−27
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 30−33
Cyberpunk 2077 24−27
Far Cry 5 35−40
Forza Horizon 4 95−100
Hitman 3 27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn 75−80
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 20
Watch Dogs: Legion 75−80

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 40−45

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5 27−30
Far Cry New Dawn 21−24

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 14−16
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 12−14
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 16−18
Cyberpunk 2077 8−9
Far Cry 5 16−18
Forza Horizon 4 75−80
Hitman 3 18−20
Horizon Zero Dawn 30−35
Metro Exodus 27−30
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 27−30
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 16−18
Watch Dogs: Legion 90−95

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 24−27

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5 14−16
Far Cry New Dawn 10−12
Hitman 3 10−12
Horizon Zero Dawn 75−80
Metro Exodus 14−16
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 14−16

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey 9−10
Assassin's Creed Valhalla 7−8
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 8−9
Cyberpunk 2077 2−3
Far Cry 5 8−9
Forza Horizon 4 20−22
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 14−16
Watch Dogs: Legion 6−7

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2 14−16

Closest competitors

Radeon R9 280X's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop graphics cards.


Radeon R9 380 104.82
Radeon R9 280X 100
Radeon 760M 98.35

NVIDIA equivalent

According to our data, the closest NVIDIA alternative to Radeon R9 280X is GeForce GTX 770, which is faster by 1% and higher by 6 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest NVIDIA rivals to Radeon R9 280X:

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with Radeon R9 280X according to our statistics.

All comparisons with Radeon R9 280X

Community ratings

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.


4.1 693 votes

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Questions & comments

Here you can ask a question about Radeon R9 280X, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.