GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon R9 280

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GT 1030 and Radeon R9 280, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the GeForce GT 1030 stacks up against Radeon R9 280, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  GeForce GT 1030 Radeon R9 280
Power consumption (TDP) 30 Watt 200 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x4 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors None 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort
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  • Radeon R9 280 has 566% more power consumption, than GeForce GT 1030.
  • GeForce GT 1030 is connected by PCIe 3.0 x4, and Radeon R9 280 uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon R9 280 has 1 GB more memory, than GeForce GT 1030.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • GeForce GT 1030 is build with Pascal architecture, and Radeon R9 280 - with GCN 1.0.
  • GeForce GT 1030 is manufactured by 14 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 280 - by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon R9 280 is 130 mm longer, than GeForce GT 1030.
  • Memory clock speed of GeForce GT 1030 is 4750 MHz higher, than Radeon R9 280.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 12−14 35−40
ultra / 1080p 8−9 21−24
QHD / 1440p 2−3 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 27−30 60−65
medium / 1080p 16−18 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 280 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 176% more, than GeForce GT 1030.

Full Specs

  GeForce GT 1030 Radeon R9 280
Architecture Pascal GCN 1.0
Code name N17P-G1 Tahiti
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 17 May 2017 4 March 2014
Pipelines 384 1792
Core clock speed 1228 MHz
Boost Clock 1670 MHz 933 MHz
Transistor count 1,800 million 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 14 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 35.23 104.5
Floating-point performance 1,127 gflops 3,344 gflops
Length 145 mm 275 mm
Memory bus width 64 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 6000 MHz 1250 MHz
Memory bandwidth 48.06 GB/s 240 GB/s
Shared memory -
G-SYNC support +
VR Ready +
DirectX 12 (12_1)
Shader Model 6.4 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131 +
CUDA 6.1
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.11 kh/s
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 408 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
TrueAudio +
Design reference
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 21.5 Mh/s
LiquidVR +
TressFX +
UVD +
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