Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a speed of 1125 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 625 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a speed of 993 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB 106 Watts
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 110 Watts
Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB 72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 63552 MB/sec
Difference: 8448 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4850 2GB should be quite a bit (about 102%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4850 2GB 25000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 12600 (102%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 24%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4850 2GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4850 2GB 10000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 2400 (24%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model Radeon HD 3870 1GB Radeon HD 4850 2GB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Jun 25, 2008
Code Name RV670 XT RV770 PRO
Memory 1024 MB 2048 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 625 MHz
Memory Speed 2250 MHz 1986 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 110 watts
Bandwidth 72000 MB/sec 63552 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 25000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 10000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 800(160x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 40
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR4 GDDR4
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 956 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over 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 type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4850 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

Be the first to leave a comment!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield