Radeon HD 3870 512MB vs Radeon HD 6770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6770, which has GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1050 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 800 Stream Processors, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 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 6770		108 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6770 should theoretically be a little bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		67200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 is much (about 190%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		36000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23600 (190%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6770 is a small bit (more or less 16%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6770		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (16%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.