Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon R9 M275X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M275X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1125 MHz on this specific model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M275X will be 137% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (137%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M275X is quite a bit (more or less 1025%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M275X		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32800 (1025%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution 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 512MB		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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at 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 the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.