Radeon HD 7950 3GB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1425 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380X		190 Watts
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (5%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7950 3GB, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon R9 380X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950 3GB		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (32%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be much (approximately 39%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		89600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34560 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X should be quite a bit (about 21%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950 3GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5440 (21%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.