Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 280X, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 2048 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 280X		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280X should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 235008 (443%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a lot (approximately 918%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 98112 (918%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X will be a lot (more or less 154%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16512 (154%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.