Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 7750

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7750, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7750		55 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7750 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 19008 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7750 should be much (approximately 140%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		25600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 14912 (140%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7750 is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 7750		12800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2112 (20%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one 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, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.