AMD Radeon R9 M380 vs AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT and the AMD Radeon R9 M380 represent two distinct eras of AMD graphics technology, separated by a generational gap that is immediately visible in their benchmark profiles. The data positions the RX 5700 XT as a high-performance desktop part from the Radeon RX 5000 series, while the R9 M380 is a mobile-oriented chip from the R9 M300 series, with the two cards sharing only a single head-to-head victory each. This analysis will dissect their architectural lineage, raw specifications, and the limited benchmark data to determine where each card’s strengths truly lie.

FAQ

Q: How do the two cards compare in their average benchmark scores?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 16361, while the AMD Radeon R9 M380 scores 15521. This places the RX 5700 XT in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, slightly ahead of the R9 M380's 58th percentile.

Q: Which card wins in the Geekbench Metal benchmark, and by how much?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT wins decisively in Geekbench Metal, scoring 74647 compared to the R9 M380's 18476. This represents a 304% advantage for the RX 5700 XT.

Q: Is there any benchmark where the R9 M380 outperforms the RX 5700 XT?

A: Yes, in Geekbench OpenCL, the AMD Radeon R9 M380 scores 12565, which is 24.2% higher than the RX 5700 XT's score of 9524. This is the sole benchmark win for the R9 M380 in the head-to-head data.

Q: What are the approximate release dates for these two GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT was released on 2019-07-06, while the AMD Radeon R9 M380 is older, with a release date of 2015-05-04.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count and what is the difference in manufacturing process?

A: The RX 5700 XT has a transistor count of 10,300 million on a 7 nm process, whereas the R9 M380 has 2,080 million transistors on a 28 nm process. This results in a transistor density of 41.0M / mm² for the RX 5700 XT versus 13.0M / mm² for the R9 M380.

Q: What is the difference in memory bandwidth between the two cards?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT offers a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. In contrast, the R9 M380 provides 96.00 GB/s of bandwidth with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus.

Where Each One Wins

The benchmark data reveals a clear split in workload preferences. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT demonstrates overwhelming superiority in the Geekbench Metal test, a compute API often used for GPU-accelerated graphics and general-purpose compute on Apple platforms. Its score of 74647 dwarfs the R9 M380's 18476, indicating a massive advantage in scenarios that leverage Metal's low-level access to the GPU's hardware. This suggests the RX 5700 XT is the definitive choice for any application that can offload work to the GPU via Metal, from creative content creation to high-end gaming.

Conversely, the AMD Radeon R9 M380 secures a win in the Geekbench OpenCL benchmark. With a score of 12565 versus the RX 5700 XT's 9524, the R9 M380 is 24.2% faster in this specific test. OpenCL is a cross-platform framework for heterogeneous computing, and this result suggests that in certain legacy or specialized compute workloads that are optimized for OpenCL, the older GCN 2.0 architecture can outperform the newer RDNA 1.0 design. This is an unexpected result that implies architectural trade-offs, where the R9 M380's compute pipelines were more efficient in this particular synthetic test than the RX 5700 XT's.

Beyond these two direct comparisons, the RX 5700 XT has a much richer benchmark portfolio, with scores in 3DMark Steel Nomad, Passmark's various DirectX tests, and a G3D score of 16277. The R9 M380 has no data for these tests, indicating its performance in modern gaming APIs is unverified by this dataset. This absence of data is itself a significant finding: the R9 M380's competitive relevance is confined to specific legacy compute scenarios, whereas the RX 5700 XT is a comprehensively tested modern GPU.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is profound and explains their divergent benchmark results. The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture, manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It features the Navi 10 chip and belongs to the Navi (RX 5000) generation. This modern design allows for a transistor density of 41.0M / mm², proof of the advanced manufacturing node.

In contrast, the AMD Radeon R9 M380 uses the GCN 2.0 architecture, fabricated on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC. Its chip is codenamed Strato, and it belongs to the Gem System (R9 M300) generation. The older 28 nm node results in a much lower transistor density of 13.0M / mm². While the RX 5700 XT has no listed predecessor, the R9 M380's predecessor is listed as "Solar System," and its successor is "Polaris Mobile," indicating its place in AMD's mobile GPU evolution.

These architectural differences manifest in the feature sets and API support. The RX 5700 XT supports DirectX 12 (12_1) and Vulkan 1.4, while the R9 M380 supports DirectX 12 (12_0) and Vulkan 1.2.170. The RDNA 1.0 architecture is designed for higher instruction-level parallelism and lower latency, which typically translates to better gaming performance, while GCN 2.0 was an older compute-focused design. Neither card features dedicated ray tracing or tensor cores, as those fields are marked as null in the data.

Specification Differences

A side-by-side comparison of the specification sheets highlights the generational leap. The RX 5700 XT has 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 64 render output units (ROPs). The R9 M380, by contrast, has only 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. This massive difference in execution resources is reflected in the fill rates: the RX 5700 XT achieves a pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s, versus the R9 M380's 16.00 GPixel/s and 48.00 GTexel/s.

Clock speeds also differ significantly. The RX 5700 XT has a base clock of 1605 MHz and a boost clock of 1905 MHz, while the R9 M380 operates at a base of 900 MHz and boosts to 1000 MHz. The RX 5700 XT's FP32 performance is rated at 9.754 TFLOPS, which is over six times the R9 M380's 1.536 TFLOPS. Memory configurations are equally divergent: the RX 5700 XT uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, while the R9 M380 uses 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, yielding bandwidths of 448.0 GB/s and 96.00 GB/s, respectively.

The bus interface also differs, with the RX 5700 XT utilizing PCIe 4.0 x16 and the R9 M380 using the older PCIe 3.0 x16. The RX 5700 XT is a dual-slot card with dimensions of 272 mm in length, requiring a 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin power connector and a 550 W suggested PSU. The R9 M380 has no published dimensions, power connectors, or suggested PSU, reinforcing its status as a mobile or OEM-specific part. The RX 5700 XT is the only one with a launch MSRP of 399 USD.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head benchmark data presents a stark contrast in performance scaling. The most significant win for the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT comes in the Geekbench Metal test, where it scores 74647 against the R9 M380's 18476. This is a delta of 304%, meaning the RX 5700 XT is more than four times faster. This enormous margin is likely due to the combination of a newer architecture, far more shading units, and significantly higher memory bandwidth, all of which are critical for Metal's compute-heavy workloads.

The reverse is true for the Geekbench OpenCL test, where the AMD Radeon R9 M380 wins with a score of 12565 versus the RX 5700 XT's 9524. The delta here is -24.2%, indicating that the R9 M380 is 24.2% faster. This is a curious anomaly, as the RX 5700 XT's raw specifications are vastly superior. The result suggests that the R9 M380's GCN 2.0 architecture has a specific strength in OpenCL execution that the RDNA 1.0 architecture does not replicate, possibly due to driver optimization differences or the specific workload characteristics of the test. While the RX 5700 XT has a higher average benchmark score (16361 vs 15521), this OpenCL result prevents the newer card from achieving a clean sweep.

The Verdict

Based strictly on the data, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is the clear winner for almost all modern workloads. Its 304% lead in Geekbench Metal, combined with its superior specifications—such as the 7 nm process, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, and 9.754 TFLOPS of FP32 compute—makes it the obvious choice for any user requiring high-performance graphics or compute in a desktop environment. Its comprehensive benchmark suite, including a Passmark G3D score of 16277, confirms its broad capability across DirectX 10, 11, and 12 applications, which the R9 M380 lacks data for.

The AMD Radeon R9 M380, however, should not be dismissed entirely. Its 24.2% victory in Geekbench OpenCL is a data-driven reminder that older architectures can retain a niche advantage in specific legacy compute scenarios. For a user whose primary workload is OpenCL-based and who is constrained to an older platform with PCIe 3.0, the R9 M380 could theoretically offer a performance edge in that single metric. Nevertheless, its 4 GB of memory, 128-bit bus, and significantly lower shading unit count make it a poor candidate for gaming or modern GPU-accelerated tasks. The RX 5700 XT is the recommended pick for nearly every use case, with the R9 M380 reserved only for the most specialized OpenCL-dependent situations.