AMD Radeon R9 280X: specs and benchmarks

Price now 275$

Games supported 79%

Year of release 2013

Performance 14.84

Recommended processors

User ratings: view and submit

Questions and comments

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 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 dual-slot 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.

It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at

14.84%

of a leader's which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

GeForce RTX4090

Compare

General info

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

Place in performance ranking	280
Value for money	3.97
Architecture	GCN (2011−2017)
GPU code name	Thaiti XTL
Market segment	Desktop
Design	reference
Release date	8 October 2013 (9 years old)
Launch price (MSRP)	$299
Current price	$275 (0.9x MSRP)	of 158889 (A100 PCIe)

Value for money

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Technical specs

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 cores	2048	of 20480 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)
Boost clock speed	1000 MHz	of 3599 (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	4,313 million	of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080)
Power consumption (TDP)	250 Watt	of 2400 (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate	128.0	of 969.9 (H100 SXM5 96 GB)
Floating-point performance	4,096 gflops	of 16384 (Radeon Pro Duo)

Size and 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 support	PCIe 3.0
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	275 mm
Width	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin

Memory

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 type	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bus width	384 Bit	of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bandwidth	288 GB/s	of 3276 (Aldebaran)
Shared memory	-

Video outputs and ports

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 Connectors	2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
Eyefinity	+
HDMI	+
DisplayPort support	+

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	1
Enduro	-
FreeSync	1
HD3D	+
LiquidVR	1
PowerTune	-
TressFX	1
TrueAudio	+
ZeroCore	-
UVD	+
DDMA audio	+

API support

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

DirectX	DirectX® 12
Shader Model	5.1
OpenGL	4.6
OpenCL	1.2
Vulkan	+
Mantle	-

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 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 280X 14.84

Passmark

This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various 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: 24%

R9 280X 5837

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.

Benchmark coverage: 16%

R9 280X 33045

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.

Benchmark coverage: 16%

R9 280X 10792

3DMark Fire Strike Score

Benchmark coverage: 13%

R9 280X 7368

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.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

R9 280X 52117

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 seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

R9 280X 8343

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.

Benchmark coverage: 8%

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.

Benchmark coverage: 4%

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.

Benchmark coverage: 1%

R9 280X 1017

Mining hashrates

Cryptocurrency mining performance of Radeon R9 280X. Usually measured in megahashes per second.

Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256)	494 Mh/s
Decred / DCR (Decred)	1.07 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto)	14.42 Mh/s
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight)	0.5 kh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash)	285 Sol/s

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 HD	65
4K	31

Performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

27−30

Full HD
Medium Preset

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

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	30−35
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	50−55
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	40−45
Cyberpunk 2077	27−30
Far Cry 5	40−45
Far Cry New Dawn	40−45
Forza Horizon 4	50−55
Hitman 3	40−45
Horizon Zero Dawn	30−35
Metro Exodus	21−24
Red Dead Redemption 2	24−27
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	30−35
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	48
Watch Dogs: Legion	27−30

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	30−35
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	50−55
Cyberpunk 2077	27−30
Far Cry 5	40−45
Far Cry New Dawn	40−45
Forza Horizon 4	50−55
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	20
Watch Dogs: Legion	27−30

1440p
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	21−24
Hitman 3	24−27
Horizon Zero Dawn	21−24
Metro Exodus	12−14
Red Dead Redemption 2	10−12
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	18−20

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	14−16
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14
Battlefield 5	30−35
Cyberpunk 2077	9−10
Far Cry 5	24−27
Far Cry New Dawn	27−30
Forza Horizon 4	27−30
Watch Dogs: Legion	9−10

4K
High Preset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	10−12
Hitman 3	14−16
Horizon Zero Dawn	10−12
Metro Exodus	7−8
Red Dead Redemption 2	8−9
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	9−10
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	14−16

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	8−9
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	6−7
Battlefield 5	14−16
Cyberpunk 2077	4−5
Far Cry 5	12−14
Far Cry New Dawn	14−16
Forza Horizon 4	18−20
Watch Dogs: Legion	5−6

Relative perfomance

Radeon R9 280X's performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 103.23

NVIDIA P106-100 102.83

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 100.81

AMD Radeon R9 280X 100

AMD Radeon R9 280 95.96

AMD Radeon HD 7990 95.35

AMD Tonga 95.28

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 1 position in our ranking.

GeForce GTX770

Compare

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

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 103.23

NVIDIA P106-100 102.83

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 100.81

AMD Radeon R9 280X 100

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 95.22

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 94.61

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Ti OEM 92.99