Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which comes with a core clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M275X should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (137%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X will be much (more or less 1025%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32800 (1025%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M275X is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (350%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.