Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which features core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs along with 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6950 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129600 (426%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 is much (approximately 2100%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67200 (2100%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

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