Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM), which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 480 SPUs, 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 6670 (OEM)		63 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 43 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is 13% faster than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) will be much (more or less 55%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		19200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is quite a bit (about 94%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM), and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM)		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (94%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.