Radeon HD 7870 vs Radeon R9 M295X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M295X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M295X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M295X should be 15% quicker than the Radeon HD 7870 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (15%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M295X should be a little bit (about 20%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 7870. (explain)

Radeon R9 M295X		96000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (20%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M295X		24000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (33%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its 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 core 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.