Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire vs Radeon R9 280X

In this comparison between Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire and Radeon R9 280X you will find out which graphics card performs better in today's games. Bear in mind that third-party versions may have more efficient cooling and higher clock speeds. This will increase cards' performance, though not by much. In addition to raw power you should also take into account the dimensions. Thicker models simply will not fit into a small mini-ITX case. The resolution of your monitor also affects the choice, since 4K gameplay requires a more powerful GPU. And don't overspend on the graphics card. Other parts of your build may also need to be upgraded, save some money for the CPU or power supply. For some people Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire will be the best choice, for others Radeon R9 280X will be their preference. Study the comparison tables below and make your choice.

Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire is only used in laptop graphics. It has lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire here:

Main Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire Radeon R9 280X
Power consumption (TDP) 120 Watt 250 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin
Memory type DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 2x1 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon R9 280X has 108% more power consumption, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire.
  • Radeon R9 280X has 1 GB more memory, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire is used in Laptops, and Radeon R9 280X - in Desktops.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon R9 280X - with GCN.
  • Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 280X - by 28 nm process technology.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 16−18 35−40
ultra / 1080p 9−10 21−24
QHD / 1440p 4−5 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11
low / 720p 30−35 60−65
medium / 1080p 18−20 40−45
The average gaming FPS of Radeon R9 280X in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 125% more, than Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire.

Full Specs

  Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Crossfire Radeon R9 280X
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name Broadway-XT Thaiti XTL
Type Laptop Desktop
Release date 7 January 2010 8 October 2013
Pipelines 1600 2048
Core clock speed 700 MHz
Boost Clock 1000 MHz
Transistor count 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 128.0
Floating-point performance 4,096 gflops
Length 275 mm
Memory bus width 128 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 1000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 288 GB/s
Shared memory - -
DirectX DirectX 11, Shader 5.0
Shader Model 5.1
OpenGL 4.6
OpenCL 1.2
Vulkan +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.5 kh/s
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 494 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
TrueAudio +
Design reference
DisplayPort support +
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 1.07 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 14.42 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 285 Sol/s
AppAcceleration +
LiquidVR +
TressFX +
UVD +
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