Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M295X, which features a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have the exact same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be a small bit (approximately 14%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11520 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be a little bit (more or less 17%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M295X, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4160 (17%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.