Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It is comprised of 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 480 4GB should be 59% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 85248 (59%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be quite a bit (about 511%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 134880 (511%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB is quite a bit (approximately 36%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9440 (36%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.