Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M375

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M375, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 1015 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a speed of 1100 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be 105% quicker than the Radeon R9 M375 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M375		35200 MB/sec
	Difference: 36800 (105%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M375 should be much (more or less 227%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M375		40600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28200 (227%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M375 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M375		16240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (31%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 reach the max fill rate.