Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6750

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6750, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 720 SPUs as well as 36 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6750		86 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6750 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6750		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6750 is quite a bit (more or less 110%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6750		26100 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13700 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6750, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6750		11600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.