Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1400 MHz on this specific card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (140%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 270X is 238% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 126208 (238%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be much (approximately 649%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69312 (649%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270X is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21312 (199%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.