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Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB comes with a core clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4670 1GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 memory running at 1100 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB 70 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 36 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4670 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 1GB 35200 MB/sec
Difference: 22400 (64%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 94%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB 24000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 11600 (94%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 1GB 6000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 6400 (107%)

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

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 512MB Radeon HD 4670 1GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Sep 10, 2008
Code Name RV670 XT RV730 XT
Memory 512 MB 1024 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 750 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 2200 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 70 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 35200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 24000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 6000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
Render Output Units 16 8
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2
Bus Width 256-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 514 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 2.0 x16, AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record 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 called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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