Radeon HD 3470 512MB 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 speed at 860 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7850, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 123200 (405%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 should be a lot (approximately 1620%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51840 (1620%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7850 is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.