Radeon HD 3850 1GB vs Radeon HD 6950

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950, which features GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1408 SPUs, 88 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (202%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 will be quite a bit (approximately 559%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 59712 (559%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.