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Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB comes with a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1125 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 640 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB 95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 250X 2GB should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB 72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should be much (about 223%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB 40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 27600 (223%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should be a lot (about 29%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB 16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3600 (29%)

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

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 512MB Radeon R7 250X 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 February 2014
Code Name RV670 XT Cape Verde XT
Memory 512 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 4500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 72000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 640
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 1500 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed 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 number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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