Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M385X, which has core speeds of 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 896 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M385X will be 67% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X will be quite a bit (approximately 397%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49200 (397%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X is quite a bit (more or less 42%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.