Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon R9 M385X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 M385X, which has a clock frequency of 1100 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 896 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M385X should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (33%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be quite a bit (about 397%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		61600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49200 (397%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M385X should be quite a bit (about 42%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon R9 M385X		17600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.