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Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1375 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 896 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X 75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 106 Watts
Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X is 22% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X 88000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 72000 MB/sec
Difference: 16000 (22%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is quite a bit (more or less 306%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X 50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 38000 (306%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a bit (about 16%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X 14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 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

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Radeon HD 3870 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.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 1GB Radeon R9 M280X
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Feb 9 2015
Code Name RV670 XT Saturn XT
Memory 1024 MB 4096 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 900 MHz
Memory Speed 2250 MHz 5500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 72000 MB/sec 88000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 50400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 14400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 896
Texture Mapping Units 16 56
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR4 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 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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