Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7850, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 123200 (405%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be quite a bit (approximately 1620%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51840 (1620%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24320 (760%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.