Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 250X, which features a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R7 250X		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R7 250X should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 19008 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X will be quite a bit (more or less 274%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29312 (274%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X should be quite a bit (about 50%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5312 (50%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.