Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which has core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1408 SPUs as well as 88 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 6950		200 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6950 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (202%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be a lot (more or less 559%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59712 (559%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14912 (140%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics 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 colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.