Chronological order of clipping a Raster

This is just a query about clipping a raster using a spatial polygon data frame. When we are clipping a raster whether we should 'crop' first and then 'mask' or is it the other way around?

1. Crop and Mask link 1, link 2, link 3

2. Mask and Crop link 1, link 2

I am confused.

Thanks

Dipu