Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 4350

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4350, which comes with a clock frequency of 575 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 500 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4350		22 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (382%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be much faster than the Radeon HD 4350 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4350		8000 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (620%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 170%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4350. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		4600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (170%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 4350, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		2300 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10100 (439%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out 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 in a second.

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