Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M390X, which comes with GPU core speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be a bit superior to the Radeon R9 M390X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X will be a small bit (about 10%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8064 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is quite a bit (about 22%) better at FSAA than the Radeon R9 M390X, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5024 (22%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.