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Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB has a GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory is set to run at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB 106 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 200 Watts
Difference: 94 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 72000 MB/sec
Difference: 88000 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot (about 468%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 58000 (468%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be a lot (more or less 106%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB 25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 13200 (106%)

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

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Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 3870 1GB Radeon HD 6950 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 December 2010
Code Name RV670 XT Cayman Pro
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 800 MHz
Memory Speed 2250 MHz 5000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 200 watts
Bandwidth 72000 MB/sec 160000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 70400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 25600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 1408
Texture Mapping Units 16 88
Render Output Units 16 32
Bus Type GDDR4 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 40 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 2640 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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