Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6950 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1250 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1408 SPUs, 88 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 6950 2GB		200 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (89%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		160000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (178%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6950 2GB is quite a bit (more or less 468%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		70400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58000 (468%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 6950 2GB		25600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13200 (106%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.