Radeon HD 5870 vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M390X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 723 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M390X, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X will be a lot (about 36%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 5870. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24544 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be a little bit (about 18%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M390X, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4064 (18%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.