Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 M260, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 715 MHz. The DDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 384 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon R7 M260 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (260%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260 should be much (more or less 38%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260		17160 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4760 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260		5720 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6680 (117%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.