Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M365X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M365X, which has a clock speed of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M365X is much (more or less 198%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M365X		37000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24600 (198%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M365X is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M365X		14800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2400 (19%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.