Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1400 MHz on this particular card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270X should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 148800 (489%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X will be quite a bit (more or less 2400%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76800 (2400%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (approximately 900%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28800 (900%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's 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 ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.