Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which comes with core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R9 M290X should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 123200 (405%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be quite a bit (about 2025%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 64800 (2025%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be a lot (more or less 750%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (750%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.