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Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4830 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 575 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 95 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 11 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4830 512MB should be much (more or less 48%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4830 512MB 18400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 6000 (48%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4830 512MB 9200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3200 (35%)

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

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4830 512MB

Amazon.com

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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

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Model Radeon HD 3870 512MB Radeon HD 4830 512MB
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Nov 19, 2007 Oct 21, 2008
Code Name RV670 XT RV770 LE
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 775 MHz 575 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 95 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 12400 Mtexels/sec 18400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12400 Mpixels/sec 9200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 32
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount 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 speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4830 512MB

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.

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