Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 M260X, which has a GPU core clock speed of 825 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R7 M260X should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 11008 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X is a lot (approximately 85%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9112 (85%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 256MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4088 (62%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.