Radeon HD 6870 vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M395X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 723 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M395X		125 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M395X should perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 25600 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is a lot (about 84%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42144 (84%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the Radeon R9 M395X, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5664 (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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.