Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M270X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M270X should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 19008 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X should be much (more or less 171%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18312 (171%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M270X is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 912 (9%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.