Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M275X		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M275X should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 19008 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X should be much (about 237%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25312 (237%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X should be much (more or less 35%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3712 (35%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can 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 Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.