Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R5 M230, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 780 MHz. The DDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 320 SPUs along with 20 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon R5 M230 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (90%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 will be a lot (approximately 388%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (388%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 256MB is superior to the Radeon R5 M230, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R5 M230		3120 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 80 (3%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 the video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.