Radeon HD 7950 3GB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 380X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 970 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1425 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units 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

In theory, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB should be 32% faster than the Radeon R9 380X in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X will be quite a bit (about 39%) better at texture filtering 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 much (about 21%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 7950 3GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.