Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129600 (426%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be much (approximately 2100%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67200 (2100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be much (more or less 700%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22400 (700%)

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 information (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 bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.