Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 5570

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5570, which comes with a core clock speed of 650 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should in theory perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5570 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5570		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (6%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5570 is much (about 306%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5570		13000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9800 (306%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5570 should be a lot (more or less 63%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5570		5200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (63%)

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 transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.