Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific card. It features 2560 SPUs as well as 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator 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.

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

The Radeon R9 390 8G should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6970 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G is a lot (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

The Radeon R9 390 8G is a lot (approximately 127%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 6970, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of 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 calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.