Radeon HD 3850 512MB vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5670, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5670 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 11008 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5670 will be much (more or less 45%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4812 (45%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be a lot (more or less 72%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4488 (72%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.