Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 4350

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 4350, which features core speeds of 575 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 512 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 80(16x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4350		22 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (382%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 4350 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4350		8000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (800%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be a lot (more or less 170%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4350. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4350		4600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (170%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be quite a bit (about 439%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4350, and will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.