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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which has GPU core speed of 1050 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

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

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should be much faster than 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 should be a lot (about 1390%) better at 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 lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is the winner, by far. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.