Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon R9 280X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 850 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 280X should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		288000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 257600 (847%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is a lot (more or less 3300%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		108800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 105600 (3300%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280X is quite a bit (about 750%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (750%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported 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 memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 get to the max fill rate.