Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7870, which features a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (133%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 100608 (190%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be a lot (more or less 649%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 69312 (649%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is quite a bit (about 199%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21312 (199%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of 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 clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.