Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory 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

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB will be 426% faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 129600 (426%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is a lot (about 2100%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 67200 (2100%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB should be a lot (approximately 700%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.