Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M290X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R9 M290X should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (113%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (approximately 448%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55600 (448%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X is much (about 119%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14800 (119%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.