Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 825 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is 117% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 62208 (117%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be much (approximately 147%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15712 (147%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15712 (147%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.