Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon R5 M230

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3470 512MB should be 90% quicker than the Radeon R5 M230 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
Radeon R5 M230		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (90%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R5 M230 should be a lot (about 388%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R5 M230		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12400 (388%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 512MB is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number 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 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 the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.