Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1500 MHz on this specific model. It features 2816 SPUs as well as 176 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (159%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 326400 (567%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G is a lot (approximately 1390%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 172400 (1390%)

Pixel Rate

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

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 54800 (442%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.