Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which features GPU core speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1050 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (94%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 will be 425% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (425%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be much (about 769%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44600 (769%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25900 (893%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.