Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which features GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280 should in theory perform much faster than the Radeon R9 M385X in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144000 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be quite a bit (about 70%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M385X. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42896 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12256 (70%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.