Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 480 Stream Processors, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB will be much (more or less 26%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (26%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 138%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (138%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.