Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB, which has a core clock frequency of 650 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 43200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 26%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 1GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (138%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.