Radeon HD 6970 vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M395X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 is 10% faster than the Radeon R9 M395X overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (10%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X will be a small bit (more or less 10%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8064 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (about 22%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M395X, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5024 (22%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.