Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 4350

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4350, which features clock speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 80(16x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4350		22 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (382%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 4350 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4350		8000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (800%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be a lot (more or less 170%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4350. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		4600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (170%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a lot (more or less 439%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4350, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		2300 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10100 (439%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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.