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Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB features a core clock speed of 825 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1126 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon R9 M280X in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 144128 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M280X 88000 MB/sec
Difference: 56128 (64%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be much (about 91%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X 50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 24000 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is superior to the Radeon R9 M280X, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M280X 14400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 12000 (83%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon R9 M280X

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB Radeon R9 M280X
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 Feb 9 2015
Code Name R680 Saturn XT
Memory 1024 MB (x2) 4096 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 900 MHz
Memory Speed 2252 MHz (x2) 5500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 144128 MB/sec 88000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 50400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 14400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 896
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 56
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR4 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R9 M280X

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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