Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon R9 295X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 295X2, which features GPU clock speed of 1018 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1250 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is made up of 2816 Stream Processors, 176 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 295X2 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		640000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 495872 (344%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 is a lot (approximately 1257%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		358336 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 331936 (1257%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 295X2 should be quite a bit (about 394%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 295X2		130304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 103904 (394%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.