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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 vs AMD Radeon R9 280X

NVIDIA
VS
AMD
Performance
GeForce RTX 5060337% better
47,201.536% of 129,772
Radeon R9 280X
10,7928% of 129,772

The GeForce RTX 5060 has 337% better performance than the Radeon R9 280X for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

Performance per dollar
GeForce RTX 5060337% better
157.8696% of 165.13
Radeon R9 280X
36.0922% of 165.13

The GeForce RTX 5060 has 337% better value for the money than the Radeon R9 280X for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

Shop GeForce RTX 5060
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Summary

#

About the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 GPU

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is a desktop graphics card that launched in Q2 2025 with a MSRP of $299. It is built on the Blackwell 2.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename GB206) and is manufactured on a 5 nm process.

Memory

The RTX 5060 has 8 GB of GDDR7 memory, with a 1,750 MHz memory clock and a 128 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 448 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The RTX 5060 includes 3,840 CUDA cores, the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 2,280 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 2,497 MHz. Complementing the processing units are 120 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 48 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing. Additionally, the GPU features 120 tensor cores optimized for AI-accelerated workloads and 30 RT cores dedicated to real-time ray tracing calculations.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The RTX 5060 occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports HDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1b display connections. NVIDIA recommends a power supply of at least 300 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 145 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The RTX 5060 has the 39th best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 566 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 36.37% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. Its 47,201.5 score and $299 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 157.86. This is the 3rd best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

About the AMD Radeon R9 280X GPU

The AMD Radeon R9 280X is an end-of-life desktop graphics card that released in Q4 2013 with a MSRP of $299. It is built on the GCN 1.0 GPU microarchitecture (codename Tahiti) and is manufactured on a 28 nm process.

Memory

The R9 280X has 3 GB of GDDR5 memory, with a 1,500 MHz memory clock and a 384 bit interface. This gives it a memory bandwidth of 288 Gb/s, which affects how fast it can transfer data to and from memory. GPU memory stores temporary data that helps the GPU with complex math and graphics operations. More memory is generally better, as not having enough can cause performance bottlenecks.

Cores and Clock Speeds

The R9 280X includes 2,048 stream processors (SPs), the processing units for handling parallel computing tasks. The GPU operates at a core clock speed of 850 MHz and can dynamically boost its clock speed up to 1,000 MHz. Complementing the processing units are 128 texture mapping units (TMUs) for efficient texture filtering and 32 render output units (ROPs) for pixel processing.

Compatibility & Power Consumption

The R9 280X occupies 2 PCIe expansion slots. It supports DVI, HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.2 display connections. AMD recommends a power supply of at least 600 W to handle the GPU's thermal design power (TDP) of 250 W.

Benchmark Performance & Value

The R9 280X has the 192nd best 3DMark 11 Performance GPU score among the 566 benchmarked GPUs in our database. It achieves 8.32% of the performance of the best benchmarked GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. Its 10,792 score and $299 launch price (MSRP) gives it a performance per dollar of 36.09. This is the 83rd best in value for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

General Info

General overview of the GPU, including details like its manufacturer, release date, launch price, and current production status.

InfoGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
ManufacturerNVIDIAAMD
ArchitectureBlackwell 2.0GCN 1.0
Market SegmentDesktopDesktop
Release DateQ2 2025Q4 2013
Launch Price (MSRP)$299$299
Production StatusActiveEnd-of-life
ShopCheck PriceCheck Price

Gaming Performance

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Select a game to compare FPS metrics

Display FPS for God of War Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök
Display FPS for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
Space Marine 2
Display FPS for Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws
Display FPS for Black Myth: Wukong
Black Myth: Wukong
Display FPS for F1 24
F1 24
Display FPS for Alone in the Dark (2024)
Alone in the Dark (2024)
Display FPS for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

FPS Benchmarks

This table showcases the average frame rate (FPS) achieved both GPUs in at various resolutions. Frame rate is a crucial indicator of how smoothly the GPU can run the game. A higher FPS generally translates to a smoother gameplay experience.

  • Frames Per Second
FPS data for God of War Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök
GeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
Low - 1080p
186 FPS
--
Medium - 1080p
157 FPS
--
High - 1080p
138 FPS
--
Ultra - 1080p
127 FPS
--
QHD - 1440p
90 FPS
--
4K UHD - 2160p
37 FPS
--
FPS Source: Notebookcheck

Compare Frames Per Second (FPS)

The average frame rate (FPS) in can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative performance. Generally, higher FPS results in a smoother gameplay experience.

Choose Baseline GPU:GeForce RTX 5060 orRadeon R9 280X

Compare Cost Per Frame

The average cost per frame in can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative value. Generally, a lower cost per frame implies better value for your money.

Choose Baseline GPU:GeForce RTX 5060 orRadeon R9 280X

Benchmark Performance

#
Performance
GeForce RTX 5060337% better
47,201.536% of 129,772
Radeon R9 280X
10,7928% of 129,772

The GeForce RTX 5060 has 337% better performance than the Radeon R9 280X for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

The GeForce RTX 5060 is ranked 39th with a score of 47,201.5, and the Radeon R9 280X is ranked 192nd with a score of 10,792.

Performance per dollar
GeForce RTX 5060337% better
157.8696% of 165.13
Radeon R9 280X
36.0922% of 165.13

The GeForce RTX 5060 has 337% better value for the money than the Radeon R9 280X for the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark.

The GeForce RTX 5060 is ranked 3rd with a performance per dollar of 157.86, and the Radeon R9 280X is ranked 83rd with a performance per dollar of 36.09.

Relative Performance

The average score in the benchmark test can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative performance. Generally, powerful GPUs tend to have higher scores.

Choose Baseline GPU:GeForce RTX 5060 or
GPUBenchmark Performance
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti49,588+5%
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (8 GB)47,803+1%
GeForce RTX 506047,201.5
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti47,166-0%
GeForce RTX 307043,359-8%
GeForce GTX 165013,645-71%
Radeon R9 38012,191-74%
Radeon R9 280X10,792-77%
GeForce GTX 96010,767.5-77%
GeForce GTX 68010,216.5-78%

Relative Value For Money

The average performance per dollar in the benchmark test can be compared to similar GPUs to assess relative value. A higher score implies a better value for your money.

Choose Baseline GPU:GeForce RTX 5060 or
GPUPerformance Per Dollar
Radeon RX 9070161.42+2%
GeForce RTX 5060157.86
Arc B580153.65-3%
Radeon RX 7600144.26-9%
Radeon RX 7800 XT131.48-17%
Radeon R9 390X41.83-74%
GeForce GTX 750 Ti36.09-77%
Radeon R9 280X36.09-77%
GeForce GTX 98032.07-80%
GeForce GTX 76031.98-80%

Benchmark Scores

This table showcases the average performance scores achieved by both GPUs across industry-standard benchmark tests. These scores provide a valuable insight into overall performance. Powerful GPUs tend to have higher scores.

  • Popular
BenchmarkGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
3DMark Time Spy Graphics
13,806
(+524.71%)
2,210
3DMark Time Spy Score
14,106.5
(+489.49%)
2,393
3DMark Cloud Gate Graphics
171,078
(+228.26%)
52,117
3DMark Fire Strike Standard Graphics
37,952
(+354.9%)
8,343
3DMark Night Raid Graphics
163,486
--
3DMark 11 Performance Score
44,648.5
(+335.98%)
10,241
PassMark G3D Mark
20,707
(+235.17%)
6,178
PassMark G2D Mark
1,136
(+65.6%)
686
Unigine Heaven 3.0 DirectX 11
--
95.2
Benchmarks Source: Notebookcheck

Technical Specs

#

Graphics Processor

General information about the graphics processing unit like their architecture, manufacturing process size, and transistor count. Newer GPU architectures generally bring efficiency improvements and may introduce technologies that enhance graphical capabilities.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
CodenameGB206Tahiti
ArchitectureBlackwell 2.0GCN 1.0
Process Size5 nm28 nm
Transistors21,900 million4,313 million

Memory Details

Memory specifications like their capacity, bandwidth, and clock speeds. GPU memory stores graphics data like frames, textures, and shadows which helps display rendered images. These specs are crucial for graphics-intense applications like gaming and 3D modeling.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
Memory Size8 GB3 GB
Memory TypeGDDR7GDDR5
Memory Bandwidth448 Gb/s288 Gb/s
Memory Clock1,750 MHz1,500 MHz
Memory Interface128 bit384 bit
L1 Cache128 KB16 KB
L2 Cache32 MB768 KB

Board Compatibility

Compatibility information like their slot size, bus interface, power consumption, and display support. These specs are useful for verifying compatibility with your motherboard, power supply, and monitor.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
Slots2 slots2 slots
Bus InterfacePCIe 5.0 x8PCIe 3.0 x16
Thermal Design Power (TDP)145 W250 W
Suggested PSU300 W600 W
Power Connectors1x 8-pin1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin
OutputsHDMI 2.1b, DisplayPort 2.1bDVI, HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.2

Cores & Clock Speeds

Processing power information like its cores and clock speed. These specs impact how fast they can process graphics. Each type of core or component serves a specific computational purpose.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
Stream Processors (SP)--2,048
CUDA Cores3,840--
Compute Units (CU)--32
Stream Multiprocessors (SM)30--
Texture Mapping Units (TMU)120128
Render Output Units (ROP)4832
Tensor Cores120--
Ray Tracing Cores30--
Core Clock Speed2,280 MHz850 MHz
Core Clock Speed (Boost)2,497 MHz1,000 MHz

Theoretical Performance

Theoretical performance numbers derived from the raw specifications of the different components like core count and clock speeds. While these provide a glimpse into peak processing power, they do not represent real-world performance.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
Pixel Fill Rate119.9 GPixel/s32 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate299.6 GTexel/s128 GTexel/s
FP32 Performance19.18 TFLOPS4.1 TFLOPS
FP64 Performance299.6 GFLOPS1,024 GFLOPS

API Support

Graphics API versions supported by these graphics cards. APIs evolve over time, introducing new features and functionalities. Older GPUs may not support recent versions.

SpecGeForce RTX 5060Radeon R9 280X
DirectX12 Ultimate (12_2)12 (11_1)
OpenCL3.02.1 (1.2)
OpenGL4.64.6
Shader Model6.86.5 (5.1)

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* Performance rating, performance per dollar, and rankings are based on the 3DMark 11 Performance GPU benchmark and MSRP.