AMD Radeon R9 280 vs AMD Radeon RX 550

Compare AMD Radeon R9 280 3 GB vs AMD Radeon RX 550 4 GB, specs and GPU benchmark score. Which is the better graphics card for the money?

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AMD Radeon RX 550

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 399.00

$ 225.00

$ 174.00 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

General gaming and workstation score

1280 points

106% significantly better overall score

621 points

Flux Core frame rate

Volumetric ray casting test, a computationally expensive method of rendering high-quality scenes

30 FPS

15 FPS significantly higher Flux Core frame rate

15 FPS

Electron frame rate

Randomly generated noise sphere test

19 FPS

5 FPS significantly higher Electron frame rate

14 FPS

City frame rate

Procedurally generated city scene with voxel rendering

27 FPS

10 FPS significantly higher City frame rate

16 FPS

Clouds frame rate

Real-time noise calculation and ray marching test

10 FPS

0 FPS slightly higher Clouds frame rate

10 FPS

Free GPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Graphics score

High-end graphics benchmark

2043 points

71% significantly higher 3DMark Graphics score

1190 points

Specifications

Core Clock Speed

Nominal chip frequency

827 MHz

1100 MHz

33% slightly higher core clock speed

Boost Clock Speed

Higher turbo frequency when power conditions are met

933 MHz

1183 MHz

26% slightly higher boost clock speed

Memory

Onboard memory size for textures and vertices

3 GiB

4 GiB

33% slightly more memory

Memory Bus Width

Number of parallel lines to the memory chips

384 Bit

200% significantly larger memory bus width

128 Bit

Memory Bandwidth

Data transfer speed between GPU core and memory

240 GB/s

114% significantly higher memory bandwidth

112 GB/s

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the GPU

250 W

50 W

400% significantly lower TDP

Pixel Rate

Number of pixels that can be rendered per second

29.86 Gigapixels/s

57% significantly higher pixel rate

18.93 Gigapixels/s

Texture Rate

Number of textured pixels that can be rendered per second

104.5 Gigatexels/s

176% significantly higher texture rate

37.86 Gigatexels/s

Shading Units

Number of processors dedicated to shader processing

1792

250% significantly more shading units

512

Texture Mapping Units

Number of processors dedicated to applying textures

112

250% significantly more texture mapping units

Render Output Processors

Number of processors dedicated to final pixel rendering

100% significantly more render output processors

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

244th of 586

307th of 586

Family

The product line

Radeon R9 200 Series

Radeon RX 500 Series

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2017 April

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

GDDR5

DirectX Support

Maximum version of DirectX supported

12.0

OpenGL Support

Maximum version of OpenGL supported

4.5

Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon RX 550 comparison

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark, the Radeon R9 280 GPU is faster than the Radeon RX 550 in gaming.

The Radeon RX 550 has a slightly higher core clock speed. The core clock speed (or base speed) is the frequency at which the GPU core runs. This metric makes sense when comparing GPUs of a similar architecture or generation. In addition, the Radeon RX 550 also has a slightly higher boost clock speed. This is a frequency that can be reached if the GPU is cooled sufficiently and has enough power.

Next up, in terms of GPU memory, the Radeon RX 550 has slightly more memory with 4 GiB of memory compared to 3 GiB. Lots of memory is good when playing at high resolutions or with many monitors.

In addition, the Radeon RX 550 has a significantly lower TDP at 50 W when compared to the Radeon R9 280 at 250 W. This is not a measure of performance, but rather the amount of heat generated by the chip when running at its highest speed.

In conclusion, all specs and GPU benchmarks considered, will recommend the Radeon R9 280 over the Radeon RX 550.