Radeon HD 7990 vs Radeon R9 280X

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between Radeon HD 7990 and Radeon R9 280X, 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 7990 stacks up against Radeon R9 280X, check out specs charts below.

Main Specs

  Radeon HD 7990 Radeon R9 280X
Power consumption (TDP) 375 Watt 250 Watt
Interface PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
Supplementary power connectors 2x 8-pin 1 x 6-pin + 1 x 8-pin
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 3 GB 3 GB
Display Connectors 1x DVI, 4x mini-DisplayPort 2x DVI, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort
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  • Radeon HD 7990 has 50% more power consumption, than Radeon R9 280X.
  • Both video cards are using PCIe 3.0 x16 interface connection to a motherboard.
  • Radeon HD 7990 and Radeon R9 280X have maximum RAM of 3 GB.
  • Both cards are used in Desktops.
  • Radeon HD 7990 is build with GCN 1.0 architecture, and Radeon R9 280X - with GCN.
  • Radeon HD 7990 and Radeon R9 280X are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Radeon HD 7990 is 32 mm longer, than Radeon R9 280X.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 35−40 35−40
ultra / 1080p 21−24 21−24
QHD / 1440p 16−18 16−18
4K / 2160p 10−11 10−11
low / 720p 60−65 60−65
medium / 1080p 40−45 40−45
Radeon HD 7990 and Radeon R9 280X have the same average FPS in Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

Full Specs

  Radeon HD 7990 Radeon R9 280X
Architecture GCN 1.0 GCN
Code name Malta Thaiti XTL
Type Desktop Desktop
Release date 24 April 2013 8 October 2013
Pipelines 2048 2048
Core clock speed 950 MHz
Boost Clock 1000 MHz 1000 MHz
Transistor count 4,313 million 4,313 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 128.0 128.0
Floating-point performance 2x 4,096 gflops 4,096 gflops
Length 307 mm 275 mm
Memory bus width 384 Bit 384 Bit
Memory clock speed 6000 MHz
Memory bandwidth 288.0 GB/s 288 GB/s
Shared memory -
DirectX 12 (11_1)
Shader Model 5.1 5.1
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 1.2 1.2
Vulkan 1.2.131 +
Monero / XMR (CryptoNight) 0.5 kh/s
FreeSync +
Bus support PCIe 3.0
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 459 Mh/s 494 Mh/s
Eyefinity +
HD3D +
TrueAudio +
Design reference
DisplayPort support +
CrossFire +
DDMA audio +
Decred / DCR (Decred) 1.07 Gh/s
Ethereum / ETH (DaggerHashimoto) 44 Mh/s 14.42 Mh/s
Zcash / ZEC (Equihash) 285 Sol/s
AppAcceleration +
LiquidVR +
TressFX +
UVD +
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