Radeon R9 290 vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M385X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1100 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 290 should perform much faster than the Radeon R9 M385X in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		320000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 224000 (233%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 is a lot (about 108%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon R9 M385X. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		128000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66400 (108%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 290 should be quite a bit (approximately 191%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M385X, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 290		51200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33600 (191%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.