Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 960 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6850 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 75008 (142%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 will be much (approximately 248%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26512 (248%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14112 (132%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.