Radeon Pro Vega 20 vs R9 280

Place in performance ranking	334	350
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation	10.99	14.38
Architecture	GCN 1.0 (2012−2020)	Vega (2017−2021)
GPU code name	Tahiti	Vega Mobile
Market segment	Desktop	Mobile workstation
Design	reference	no data
Release date	4 March 2014 (10 years ago)	15 November 2018 (5 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$279	no data
Current price	$91 (0.3x MSRP)	$360

Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Pro Vega 20 has 31% better value for money than R9 280.

Detailed Specifications

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	1792	1280
Core clock speed	no data	815 MHz
Boost clock speed	933 MHz	1283 MHz
Number of transistors	4,313 million	no data
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	100 Watt
Texture fill rate	104.5	102.6
Floating-point performance	3,344 gflops	no data

Form Factor & Compatibility

Information on Radeon R9 280 and Radeon Pro Vega 20 compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	no data	large
Bus support	PCIe 3.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275 mm	no data
Width	2-slot	no data
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin	1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin

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 type	GDDR5	HBM2
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	4 GB
Memory bus width	384 Bit	1024 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	1480 MHz
Memory bandwidth	240 GB/s	189.4 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 Connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort	No outputs
Eyefinity	1	no data
HDMI	+	no data
DisplayPort support	-	no data

Supported GPU Technologies

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

AppAcceleration	-	no data
CrossFire	1	no data
Enduro	-	no data
FreeSync	1	no data
HD3D	+	no data
LiquidVR	1	no data
PowerTune	-	no data
TressFX	1	no data
TrueAudio	+	no data
ZeroCore	-	no data
UVD	+	no data
DDMA audio	+	no data

API Compatibility

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

DirectX	DirectX® 12	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	5.1	6.3
OpenGL	4.6	4.6
OpenCL	1.2	2.0
Vulkan	+	1.2.131
Mantle	-	no data

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance 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 280 14.37
+5%

Pro Vega 20 13.69

R9 280 outperforms Pro Vega 20 by 5% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. 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.

Benchmark coverage: 25%

R9 280 5562
+5%

Pro Vega 20 5299

R9 280 outperforms Pro Vega 20 by 5% in Passmark.

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.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

R9 280 8020

Pro Vega 20 9044
+12.8%

Pro Vega 20 outperforms R9 280 by 13% in 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics.

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Average FPS across all PC games

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

Full HD	60−65 −1.7%	61 +1.7%
4K	40−45 −2.5%	41 +2.5%

Pros & Cons Summary

Performance score	14.37	13.69
Recency	4 March 2014	15 November 2018
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	4 GB
Chip lithography	28 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	100 Watt