Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon R7 260X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 260X, which has a core clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1625 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
Radeon R7 260X		115 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 260X should be 96% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		104000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 51008 (96%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X will be much (more or less 476%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 50912 (476%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 260X is a lot (approximately 65%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R7 260X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.