Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 250X, which features a clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon R7 250X		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 250X should be 36% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 19008 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X is a lot (more or less 274%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29312 (274%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5312 (50%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.