Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5670, which features a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be 80% faster than the Radeon HD 5670 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (80%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a lot (more or less 70%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10900 (70%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 5670, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20200 (326%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.