Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1375 MHz on this specific model. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M280X should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (189%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is quite a bit (about 1475%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47200 (1475%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M280X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range 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 worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.