Radeon R5 230 OEM vs R9 280X

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking350not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation5.43no data
Power efficiency4.22no data
ArchitectureGCN 1.0 (2011−2020)TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code nameTahitiCaicos
Market segmentDesktopDesktop
Designreferenceno data
Release date8 October 2013 (11 years ago)21 December 2013 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$299 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

no data

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores2048160
Core clock speedno data625 MHz
Boost clock speed1000 MHzno data
Number of transistors4,313 million370 million
Manufacturing process technology28 nm40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)250 Watt19 Watt
Texture fill rate128.05.000
Floating-point processing power4.096 TFLOPS0.2 TFLOPS
ROPs324
TMUs1288

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Bus supportPCIe 3.0no data
InterfacePCIe 3.0 x16PCIe 2.0 x16
Length275 mm168 mm
Width2-slot1-slot
Supplementary power connectors1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pinNone

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory typeGDDR5DDR3
Maximum RAM amount3 GB1 GB
Memory bus width384 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speedno data667 MHz
Memory bandwidth288 GB/s10.67 GB/s
Shared memory-no data

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA
Eyefinity+-
HDMI++
DisplayPort support+-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

AppAcceleration+-
CrossFire+-
FreeSync+-
HD3D+-
LiquidVR+-
TressFX+-
TrueAudio+-
UVD+-
DDMA audio+no data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectXDirectX® 1211.2 (11_0)
Shader Model5.15.0
OpenGL4.64.4
OpenCL1.21.2
Vulkan+N/A

Pros & cons summary


Recency 8 October 2013 21 December 2013
Maximum RAM amount 3 GB 1 GB
Chip lithography 28 nm 40 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 250 Watt 19 Watt

R9 280X has a 200% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 42.9% more advanced lithography process.

R5 230 OEM, on the other hand, has an age advantage of 2 months, and 1215.8% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon R9 280X and Radeon R5 230 OEM. We've got no test results to judge.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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AMD Radeon R9 280X
Radeon R9 280X
AMD Radeon R5 230 OEM
Radeon R5 230 OEM

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Community ratings

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4.1 688 votes

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3.4 19 votes

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Questions & comments

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