Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 260X, which has GPU core speed of 1100 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1625 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R7 260X should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 51008 (96%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is a lot (more or less 476%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50912 (476%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R7 260X is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.