Compare any two graphics cards:
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870
IntroThe Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 825 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a frequency of 1126 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with a core clock speed of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.
Display Graphs
Power Usage and Theoretical BenchmarksMemory BandwidthThe Radeon HD 7870 should in theory be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB overall. (explain)
Texel RateThe Radeon HD 7870 is a lot (approximately 203%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)
Pixel RateIf using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)
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
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though. Specifications
Display Specifications
Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions. Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second. Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.
Display Prices
Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.
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