Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 7750

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7750, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7750		55 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7750 is 25% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7750 is quite a bit (approximately 106%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		25600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (106%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7750 should be a bit (more or less 3%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (3%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.