Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 M260X, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 384 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon R7 M260X should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 M260X should be a lot (approximately 60%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7400 (60%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB will be a lot (approximately 88%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon R7 M260X, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5800 (88%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.