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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB features a clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4730, which has core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 8 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 4730 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a small bit (about 18%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730 22400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4000 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is quite a bit (approximately 371%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4730, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730 5600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 20800 (371%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 4730

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

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Model Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB Radeon HD 4730
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Jan 28, 2008 Jun 8, 2009
Code Name R680 RV770/CE
Memory 512 MB (x2) 512 MB
Core Speed 825 MHz (x2) 700 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz (x2) 3600 MHz
Power (Max TDP) (Unknown) watts 140 watts
Bandwidth 115200 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 26400 Mtexels/sec 22400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 26400 Mpixels/sec 5600 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 320(64x5) (x2) 640(128x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 (x2) 32
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 8
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 128-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million 956 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16) 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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4730

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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