Radeon HD 7950 3GB vs Radeon R9 290X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 290X, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It 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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

Radeon R9 290X		369 Sol/s
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		229 Sol/s
	Difference: 140 (61%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
Radeon R9 290X		300 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 290X should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		320000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290X will be much (more or less 57%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		140800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51200 (57%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 290X is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 290X		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25600 (100%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.