Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M280X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M280X, which has a clock frequency of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 M280X		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 M280X, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		88000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (22%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X is a lot (about 306%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38000 (306%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M280X should be a bit (approximately 16%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M280X		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (16%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out 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 video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.