Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1050 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 390X 8G		13555 points
Radeon R9 290		9876 points
	Difference: 3679 (37%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		330 Sol/s
Radeon R9 290		283 Sol/s
	Difference: 47 (17%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 390X 8G		32 Mh/s
Radeon R9 290		29 Mh/s
	Difference: 3 (10%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
Radeon R9 290		300 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 390X 8G will be 20% quicker than the Radeon R9 290 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is much (approximately 44%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 290. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56800 (44%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is superior to the Radeon R9 290, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (31%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.