Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M280X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 896 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X will be 53% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 30400 (53%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be much (about 306%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38000 (306%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X will be just a bit (about 16%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (16%)

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 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 bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends 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.