Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon R5 M255

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M255, which has core clock speeds of 940 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 memory. It features 320 SPUs along with 20 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3850 1GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon R5 M255 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M255		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 36992 (231%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M255 should be quite a bit (more or less 76%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M255		18800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8112 (76%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should be a lot (more or less 42%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon R5 M255, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M255		7520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3168 (42%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.