Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 280, which features GPU core speed of 933 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon R9 280		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 280 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		240000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 168000 (233%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 is a lot (approximately 743%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		104496 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92096 (743%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 280 will be much (more or less 141%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 280		29856 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.