Radeon HD 3870 1GB 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 set to run at 1500 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2816 Stream Processors, 176 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be quite a bit (more or less 1390%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 172400 (1390%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be a lot (approximately 442%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant 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 get to the maximum fill rate.