Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon R9 Nano

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R9 Nano, which features core clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 4096 MB of HBM RAM. It features 4096 SPUs as well as 256 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 Nano will be 255% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R9 Nano		512000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 367872 (255%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 Nano is quite a bit (more or less 870%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 Nano		256000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 229600 (870%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 Nano will be quite a bit (about 142%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon R9 Nano		64000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 37600 (142%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.