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Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB comes with a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6970, which features a clock frequency of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1375 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, 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 6970 250 Watts
Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6970 is 144% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 72000 MB/sec
Difference: 104000 (144%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is quite a bit (approximately 581%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 72080 (581%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970 28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 15760 (127%)

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 6970

Amazon.com

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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 6970
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 December 2010
Code Name RV670 XT Cayman XT
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 880 MHz
Memory Speed 2250 MHz 5500 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 250 watts
Bandwidth 72000 MB/sec 176000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 84480 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 28160 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 1536
Texture Mapping Units 16 96
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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a 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 called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 6970

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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