Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which comes with clock speeds of 880 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 6970 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 123008 (232%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be much (approximately 690%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73792 (690%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 should be a lot (approximately 163%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17472 (163%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.