Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 250X 2GB is 25% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB is a lot (about 223%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (223%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X 2GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (29%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.