Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB will be a small bit (about 16%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1712 (16%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1712 (16%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.