Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M370X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M370X, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M370X should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X should be much (approximately 158%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		32000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (158%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X is a small bit (approximately 3%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (3%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.