Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6950 is 39% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (39%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is a lot (approximately 167%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44000 (167%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (3%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.