Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which has a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1120 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (101%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6870 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 81408 (154%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be much (approximately 372%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39712 (372%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be quite a bit (more or less 169%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18112 (169%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at 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 write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.