Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon RX 550

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon RX 550, which features core speeds of 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 550		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 550 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		114688 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57088 (99%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 will be much (more or less 184%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		35200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22800 (184%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 550 is much (more or less 42%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon RX 550		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.