Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which comes with 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 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (267%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 331008 (625%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should be a lot (approximately 1629%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 174112 (1629%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56512 (529%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 get to the max fill rate.