Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 933 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this specific card. It features 1792 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 280 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 182400 (317%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 will be much (about 743%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92096 (743%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 should be much (about 141%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17456 (141%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

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