Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 380 4G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 380 4G, which has a GPU core clock speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 380 4G		190 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (153%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 380 4G should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		182400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 129408 (244%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380 4G is much (more or less 916%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		108640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 97952 (916%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 380 4G is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 380 4G		31040 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20352 (190%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.