Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R7 250X 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R7 250X 2GB, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R7 250X 2GB will be 25% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 250X 2GB should be much (more or less 223%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		40000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27600 (223%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon R7 250X 2GB is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon R7 250X 2GB		16000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3600 (29%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its 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 the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.