Radeon R9 380 4G vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features a core clock frequency of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 380 4G should in theory be just a bit better than the Radeon R9 M290X in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G should be much (more or less 60%) faster with regards to texture filtering 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 (more or less 14%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M290X, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.