Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 240, which features a clock speed of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon R7 240 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 is a lot (about 37%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3912 (37%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be much (more or less 83%) better at AA than the Radeon R7 240, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4848 (83%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.