Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 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 512MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6850		127 Watts
	Difference: 52 Watts (69%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6850 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 75008 (142%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 should be much (approximately 248%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		37200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26512 (248%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6850 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6850		24800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.