Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon RX 5500 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 5500 XT, which uses a 7 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1717 MHz. The GDDR6 memory works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon RX 5500 XT		130 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (73%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 5500 XT should be 333% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		229376 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 176384 (333%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 5500 XT is a lot (approximately 1314%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		151096 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 140408 (1314%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon RX 5500 XT is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon RX 5500 XT		54944 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44256 (414%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.