Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon R5 M330

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R5 M330, which has GPU core speed of 1030 MHz, and 2048 MB of DDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon R5 M330 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M330		14400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129728 (901%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be a lot (approximately 28%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R5 M330. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R5 M330		20600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M330		8240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18160 (220%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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 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 of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.