Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon R9 M270X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 M270X, which has core clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M270X should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (137%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M270X will be quite a bit (approximately 806%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		29000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25800 (806%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M270X is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M270X		11600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (263%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.