Radeon HD 3690/3830 vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
Radeon R7 250X		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 250X should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 45504 (172%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X is quite a bit (about 274%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29312 (274%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.