Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 M380

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M380, which has a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M380 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 65600 (216%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M380 will be a lot (about 1150%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36800 (1150%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M380 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R9 M380		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (400%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.