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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 1GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB comes with a GPU core clock speed of 825 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory runs at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4830 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 575 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 640(128x5) Stream Processors, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be a lot (about 43%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 4830 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB 18400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 8000 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 1GB 9200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 17200 (187%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4830 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 X2 512MB Radeon HD 4830 1GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 Oct 21, 2008
Code Name R680 RV770 LE
Memory 512 MB (x2) 1024 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 575 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz (x2) 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 18400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 9200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 32
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR4
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 956 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across 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 RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 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 reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 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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