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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 250X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon R7 250X overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Radeon R7 250X 72000 MB/sec
Difference: 43200 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X will be a lot (approximately 52%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 13600 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 250X 16000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10400 (65%)

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

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon R7 250X

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB Radeon R7 250X
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 February 2014
Code Name R680 Cape Verde XT
Memory 512 MB (x2) 1024 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 1000 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz (x2) 4500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 72000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 40000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 16000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 640
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 40
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 1500 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.3

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon R7 250X

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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