Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 480 SPUs, 24 Texture Address Units, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (112%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should in theory be a small bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (11%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB should be quite a bit (about 26%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		15600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6570 (OEM) 2GB		5200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (138%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.