Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M395X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 723 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 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 M395X		125 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M395X should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (202%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X is a lot (about 766%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81856 (766%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X will be a lot (approximately 116%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.