Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 6750

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6750, which uses a 40 nm design. ATi has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 720 SPUs along with 36 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6750		86 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6750 will be 21% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6750		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 11008 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6750 will be a lot (approximately 144%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6750		26100 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15412 (144%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6750 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 6750		11600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 912 (9%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.