Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 6850

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6850, which comes with a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 960 SPUs, 48 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

In theory, the Radeon HD 6850 is 142% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6850 is quite a bit (approximately 248%) more effective 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

The Radeon HD 6850 should be much (approximately 132%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.