Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which features GPU core speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80128 (125%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is quite a bit (approximately 69%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10800 (69%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (408%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.