Radeon HD 3690/3830 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which features a core clock speed of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6970 should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3690/3830 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 149504 (564%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be much (approximately 690%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73792 (690%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6970 is superior to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.