Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 M390X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M390X, which has a clock speed of 723 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M390X should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129600 (426%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X should be much (approximately 2792%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 89344 (2792%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M390X should be a lot (about 623%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M390X		23136 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19936 (623%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of 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 processed in one second.

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