Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is 80% quicker than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be much (about 38%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20000 (313%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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