Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R7 M260, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 715 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 384 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 99200 (620%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (about 54%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R7 M260. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9240 (54%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (about 362%) more effective at AA than the Radeon R7 M260, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20680 (362%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.