Radeon HD 3850 X2 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1126 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should in theory be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3850 X2 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
	Difference: 38144 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be much (approximately 24%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5024 (24%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 24%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5024 (24%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.