Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6770 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1050 MHz on this model. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 6770 1GB		108 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6770 1GB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		67200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 1GB should be much (approximately 190%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (190%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 1GB should be a little bit (approximately 16%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770 1GB		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (16%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must 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 AA, HDR 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 worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.