Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M390X, which features GPU core speed of 723 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R9 M390X		125 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M390X should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (202%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X should be quite a bit (about 766%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81856 (766%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M390X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12448 (116%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.