Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4770

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4770, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 800 MHz on this card. It features 640(128x5) SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

F.E.A.R. 2

Settings:	Maximum Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Unknown (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		54 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		35 FPS
	Difference: 19 FPS (54%)

Fallout 3

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		49 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		32 FPS
	Difference: 17 FPS (53%)

Far Cry 2

Settings:	Very High Qualty
AA:	none
AF:	none
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Intel Core i7-920,3 x 2 GB Ram,Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit SP1 (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		49 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		31 FPS
	Difference: 18 FPS (58%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	8x
AF:	16x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Test Machine (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		48 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		28 FPS
	Difference: 20 FPS (71%)

Left4Dead

Settings:	Very High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1920x1200
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		52 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		32 FPS
	Difference: 20 FPS (63%)

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X

Settings:	High Quality
AA:	4x
AF:	8x
Resolution:	1680x1050
Test Machine:	Tom's Hardware Charts Test Rig (Source)

Radeon HD 4770		29 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		19 FPS
	Difference: 10 FPS (53%)

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Radeon HD 4770 wins

(Based entirely on the benchmarks listed above)

When combining all game benchmark scores on this page together, the Radeon HD 4770 wins overall, by 134 FPS. Please note that we do not have the results of every benchmark ever done for these cards, so the results may differ wildly in different games.

Radeon HD 4770		358 FPS
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		224 FPS
	Difference: 134 FPS (60%)

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4770		80 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 26 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 4770 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4770		51200 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4770 will be a lot (more or less 94%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4770		24000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (94%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be a small bit (approximately 3%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 4770, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4770		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 400 (3%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few 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.