Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 123200 (405%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be quite a bit (approximately 2400%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76800 (2400%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is a lot (more or less 900%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28800 (900%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.