Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon R9 M395X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 M395X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 723 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 M395X should in theory be a little bit superior to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 15872 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M395X will be a lot (more or less 251%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M395X		92544 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 66144 (251%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB will be a small bit (about 14%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R9 M395X, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 M395X		23136 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3264 (14%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.