Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 960 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 75008 (142%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is much (approximately 248%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26512 (248%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is much (about 132%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 rate also depends 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.