Radeon R9 380 4G vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (90%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 380 4G will be 19% faster than the Radeon R9 M290X in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be much (more or less 60%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 M290X. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40640 (60%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G will be a bit (approximately 14%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (14%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.