Radeon R5 230 vs R9 280

Place in performance ranking	334	1166
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation	10.99	no data
Architecture	GCN 1.0 (2012−2020)	TeraScale 2 (2009−2015)
GPU code name	Tahiti	Caicos
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Design	reference	reference
Release date	4 March 2014 (10 years ago)	3 April 2014 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$279	no data
Current price	$91 (0.3x MSRP)	$76

Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

R9 280 and R5 230 have a nearly equal value for money.

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	160
Boost clock speed	933 MHz	no data
Number of transistors	4,313 million	370 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	40 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	200 Watt	19 Watt
Texture fill rate	104.5	5.000
Floating-point performance	3,344 gflops	200.0 gflops

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 support	PCIe 3.0	PCIe 1.0 x4
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16
Length	275 mm	168 mm
Width	2-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin	N/A

Memory type	GDDR5	DDR3
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	4 GB
Memory bus width	384 Bit	64 Bit
Memory clock speed	1250 MHz	no data
Memory bandwidth	240 GB/s	10.67 GB/s

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	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA
Eyefinity	1	1
HDMI	+	+
DisplayPort support	-	-

Supported Technologies

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

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

API Compatibility

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

DirectX	DirectX® 12	DirectX® 11
Shader Model	5.1	5.0
OpenGL	4.6	4.4
OpenCL	1.2	1.2
Vulkan	+	no data
Mantle	-	-

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
+2421%

R5 230 0.57

R9 280 outperforms R5 230 by 2421% 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 5561
+2416%

R5 230 221

R9 280 outperforms R5 230 by 2416% in Passmark.