Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M295X, which has GPU core speed of 750 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M295X should in theory be a bit better than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X is much (about 41%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28000 (41%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a bit (approximately 13%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon R9 M295X, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.