Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6790, which has a clock frequency of 840 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 800 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6790 should be 342% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 104000 (342%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 should be quite a bit (more or less 950%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30400 (950%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10240 (320%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.