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

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which has core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 43 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 55%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 94%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.