Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which features GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M290X should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 100608 (190%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be much (approximately 536%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 57312 (536%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16512 (154%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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 max fill rate.