Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 480 SPUs as well as 24 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		63 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 43 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be 13% faster than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB will be a lot (more or less 55%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		19200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should be much (approximately 94%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6670 (OEM) 1GB		6400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6000 (94%)

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 within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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