Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 390 8G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 390 8G, which features core clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2560 SPUs along with 160 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon R9 390 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 390 8G should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 312000 (433%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390 8G should be much (about 1190%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		160000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 147600 (1190%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390 8G is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 390 8G		64000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51600 (416%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.