Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 M260X, which comes with a core clock speed of 825 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be a small bit better than the Radeon R7 M260X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X is a lot (approximately 60%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (60%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (88%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.