Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which features GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also features 2560 SPUs, 160 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 390 8G		12733 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 9263 (267%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 390 8G should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6970 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 208000 (118%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G will be quite a bit (about 89%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 75520 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390 8G is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35840 (127%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.