Radeon HD 6850 vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M390X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M390X should be 25% quicker than the Radeon HD 6850 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X should be quite a bit (approximately 149%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6850. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55344 (149%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1664 (7%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.