Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7850, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7850 will be 113% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 81600 (113%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot (about 344%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42640 (344%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15120 (122%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.