Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon R9 M280X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 6870 and Radeon R9 M280X, 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 Radeon HD 6870 stacks up against Radeon R9 M280X, check out specs charts below.

Radeon R9 M280X is a Laptop Graphics Card

Note: Radeon R9 M280X 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 Radeon R9 M280X here:

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 6870 Radeon R9 M280X
Power consumption (TDP) 151 Watt
Interface PCIe 2.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 6-pin
Memory type GDDR5 Not Listed
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB
Display Connectors 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 2x mini-DisplayPort No outputs
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  • Radeon HD 6870 is connected by PCIe 2.0 x16, and Radeon R9 M280X uses PCIe 3.0 x16 interface.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is used in Desktops, and Radeon R9 M280X - in Laptops.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is build with Terascale 2 architecture, and Radeon R9 M280X - with GCN.
  • Radeon HD 6870 is manufactured by 40 nm process technology, and Radeon R9 M280X - by 28 nm process technology.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 10−12 2−3
ultra / 1080p 6−7 1−2
QHD / 1440p 1−2 0−1
low / 720p 24−27 14−16
medium / 1080p 12−14 4−5
The average gaming FPS of Radeon HD 6870 in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 180% more, than Radeon R9 M280X.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 6870 Radeon R9 M280X
Architecture Terascale 2 GCN
Code name RV940 Barts Saturn XT
Type Desktop Laptop
Release date 22 October 2010 1 February 2015
Pipelines 1120 896
Core clock speed 900 MHz
Boost Clock 900 MHz
Transistor count 1,700 million 2,080 million
Manufacturing process technology 40 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 50.40 61.60
Floating-point performance 2,016.0 gflops 1,792 gflops
Length 220 mm
Memory bus width 256 Bit
Memory clock speed 1050 MHz
Memory bandwidth 134.4 GB/s 96 GB/s
Shared memory - -
Shader Model 5.0 6.3
OpenGL 4.4 4.4
OpenCL 1.2 Not Listed
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 2.0 x16 Not Listed
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 213 Mh/s
Laptop size large
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
PowerTune +
DualGraphics +
ZeroCore +
Switchable graphics +
Mantle +
Design reference
CrossFire +
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