Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 4730

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4730, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 640(128x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 4730 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4730		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is a little bit (about 18%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 4730. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		22400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4000 (18%)

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 4730, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4730		5600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20800 (371%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one 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 called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.