Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which features a core clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 512-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 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 1GB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 200 Watts (267%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 331008 (625%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G should be quite a bit (approximately 1629%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 174112 (1629%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.