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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB has a core clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M270X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1125 MHz on this model. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon R9 M270X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Radeon R9 M270X 72000 MB/sec
Difference: 43200 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X will be a little bit (more or less 10%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X 29000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 2600 (10%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M270X 11600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 14800 (128%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon R9 M270X

Amazon.com

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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 X2 512MB Radeon R9 M270X
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 May 1 2014
Code Name R680 Venus XT
Memory 512 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 725 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz (x2) 4500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 72000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 29000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 11600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 640
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 40
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) 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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R9 M270X

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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