Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M390X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280 should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon R9 M390X in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is a small bit (approximately 13%) better at AF than the Radeon R9 M390X. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11952 (13%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is superior to the Radeon R9 M390X, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6720 (29%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure 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 card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.