Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 480 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		63 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 43 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB is much (about 55%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB is quite a bit (about 94%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one 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 - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.