Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 5750 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 700 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1150 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 720(144x5) Stream Processors, 36 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		86 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5750 512MB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		73600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5750 512MB is a lot (approximately 103%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5750 512MB		25200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12800 (103%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is superior to the Radeon HD 5750 512MB, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5750 512MB		11200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (11%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.