Radeon R9 280 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M295X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 280 will be 36% faster than the Radeon R9 M295X overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be just a bit (approximately 9%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R9 M295X. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8496 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 280 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5856 (24%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.