Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon R9 M370X

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon R9 M370X, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon R9 M370X should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X will be quite a bit (more or less 158%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		32000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19600 (158%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon R9 M370X will be just a bit (approximately 3%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon R9 M370X		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (3%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.