Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 4670 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4670 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 RAM runs at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4670 1GB should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		35200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (16%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 650%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		24000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (650%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 88%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 1GB		6000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (88%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.