AMD Radeon R9 M395X

The AMD Radeon R9 M395X is a mobile discrete GPU built on the GCN 3.0 architecture, specifically the Amethyst chip, manufactured on TSMC's 28 nm process. It targets high-end laptops of its generation, and the data shows it remains a relevant performer in the current benchmark landscape. With a 71st percentile ranking among all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 27,883, this end-of-life mobile part holds its own against much newer desktop and mobile hardware. The following analysis details its memory subsystem, feature set, performance metrics, competitive positioning, and power requirements based solely on the provided data.

Memory Subsystem

The R9 M395X is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory, a generous capacity that supports high-resolution textures and large frame buffers without immediate capacity constraints. The memory operates at a speed of 1250 MHz, translating to 5 Gbps effective, across a 256-bit bus interface. This configuration yields a memory bandwidth of 160.0 GB/s. While this bandwidth figure is not exceptional by modern standards, it is sufficient for the GPU's 2.961 TFLOPS of FP32 compute throughput, ensuring that the shading units are not starved of data in most workloads. For high-resolution gaming, the combination of 8 GB capacity and 160.0 GB/s bandwidth suggests that the card can handle 4K textures and moderate resolutions, though the bandwidth may become a limiting factor in scenarios with extreme anti-aliasing or heavy post-processing. The 256-bit bus width is a balanced design choice, providing a solid foundation without the complexity of a wider, more power-hungry interface. In practice, benchmark results indicate that the memory subsystem does not bottleneck the GPU's overall average score, as the card performs within a few percent of rivals with potentially different memory configurations.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The R9 M395X does not include dedicated ray tracing (RT) cores or tensor cores, as these are absent from the fact pack. Its feature set relies entirely on the GCN 3.0 architecture's traditional compute and shading units. The GPU provides 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 32 raster operations pipelines (ROPs). This configuration results in a pixel rate of 23.14 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 92.54 GTexel/s, which are indicative of its fill-rate capabilities. For API support, the card offers DirectX 12 (12_0), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.170. The DirectX 12 feature level 12_0 is a notable inclusion, enabling modern API features such as bindless resources and asynchronous compute, which were relevant for its era. However, the lack of hardware-accelerated ray tracing and tensor core functionality means that the GPU must rely on traditional rasterization techniques; any ray tracing effects would be handled via compute shaders, which is inefficient. The Vulkan 1.2.170 support ensures broad compatibility with modern titles using that API, but the absence of dedicated AI or RT hardware places it firmly in the pre-RTX generation of GPUs. Benchmark scores reflect its compute-oriented design, with a Geekbench Metal score of 33,953 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 21,813, showing strong raw compute performance for its time.

Benchmark Performance

The average benchmark score for the R9 M395X is 27,883, which places it at the 71st percentile of all GPUs. This is a strong showing for a mobile part released in 2015, indicating that its compute capabilities remain competitive. The data shows a Geekbench Metal score of 33,953, which is significantly higher than its OpenCL score of 21,813, suggesting that the GPU performs particularly well in Apple's Metal API environment, likely due to driver optimization or the nature of the test workloads. The OpenCL score, while lower, still represents a substantial compute throughput.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the R9 M395X is remarkably close in average score. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti by a mere 0.3%, with the rival scoring 27,956. This is a negligible difference, effectively making the two GPUs equivalent in average benchmark performance. Similarly, it is 0.4% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, which scores 27,985. Against the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, the gap widens slightly to 1.3%, with that card scoring 28,238. Interestingly, the R9 M395X actually leads the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile by 1.6%, as that rival scores 27,435. These deltas are all within a narrow band of roughly 3% total variance, indicating that the R9 M395X, despite its age, delivers compute performance that is statistically on par with these much newer desktop and mobile GPUs. The FP32 throughput of 2.961 TFLOPS, with FP16 at a 1:1 ratio, provides a baseline for these results, but the benchmark scores suggest that memory bandwidth and driver efficiency play a significant role in achieving near-parity with newer architectures.

How It Compares

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti: The R9 M395X is effectively tied with the GTX 980 Ti, trailing by only 0.3% in average benchmark score. This is a remarkable result given that the GTX 980 Ti is a desktop flagship from the same era, while the R9 M395X is a mobile part. The data shows that the mobile GPU's compute capabilities are nearly identical to this high-end desktop card, suggesting that the 2048 shading units and 160 GB/s bandwidth are well-utilized in the benchmark suite.

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT: The RX 6600 XT, a much newer desktop GPU, holds a slim 0.4% advantage over the R9 M395X. The delta of -0.4% indicates that the older mobile chip is within a rounding error of the newer architecture. This suggests that for compute-heavy tasks, the R9 M395X's GCN 3.0 design remains highly efficient, and the performance gap between a 2015 mobile GPU and a 2021 desktop GPU is minimal in these specific benchmarks.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070: The RTX 3070 leads the R9 M395X by 1.3%, with the rival scoring 28,238 versus 27,883. While the RTX 3070 is a significantly newer and more feature-rich card with ray tracing and tensor cores, the raw compute benchmark shows only a modest 1.3% advantage. This indicates that the R9 M395X's traditional shader-based performance is still competitive, even though it lacks the modern hardware features that would give the RTX 3070 a substantial lead in ray-traced workloads.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Mobile: The R9 M395X actually outperforms the RTX 4070 Mobile by 1.6%, with the rival scoring 27,435. This is an unexpected result, as the RTX 4070 Mobile is a current-generation laptop GPU. The data shows that the older R9 M395X provides higher average benchmark scores, which could be attributed to thermal throttling on the newer mobile part, driver differences, or the specific nature of the benchmark tests favoring the GCN architecture's compute layout.

Power and Cooling

The R9 M395X has a thermal design power (TDP) of 75 W, which is relatively modest for a GPU with 2048 shading units and 5,000 million transistors. This low TDP is enabled by the 28 nm process and the mobile MXM module form factor. The card does not require any external power connectors, as it draws all its power from the MXM slot itself. Consequently, there is no suggested PSU rating provided in the data, and the power delivery is entirely dependent on the host laptop's design. The lack of power connectors simplifies installation in compatible systems, but it also means that the GPU's performance is capped by the 75 W power budget. For cooling, the MXM module form factor indicates that the solution is portable-device dependent, meaning that the laptop's own cooling system is responsible for dissipating the 75 W of heat. This places a burden on the laptop's thermal design, but the relatively low TDP suggests that a capable air cooler should suffice under typical load conditions. The pixel rate of 23.14 GPixel/s and texture rate of 92.54 GTexel/s are achieved within this power envelope, demonstrating a favorable performance-per-watt ratio for its generation. The production status is end-of-life, with a release date of May 4, 2015, and it is part of the Gem System (R9 M300) generation, succeeding the Solar System and preceding Polaris Mobile.