Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which features a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 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 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 12 Watts (19%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB should be 21% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 11008 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB will be a lot (about 80%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8512 (80%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be much (approximately 67%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4288 (67%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.