Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6750 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6750 1GB, which features GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 720 Stream Processors, 36 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6750 1GB		86 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 6750 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6750 1GB		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6750 1GB will be quite a bit (more or less 110%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6750 1GB		26100 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13700 (110%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is superior to the Radeon HD 6750 1GB, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6750 1GB		11600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 800 (7%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high 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 by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.