I think it's not about clocks (in fact, i vaguely remember seeing some specs where the 3GB variants use a slower type of vRAM than the 1.5GB ones) but the total amount of memory.
That's specific to CoD though, due to the large texture sizes and the way they are shuffled in and out of vRAM.
Let's just say that with the graphics engine update in the upcoming patch i wouldn't be keen to buy a new GPU until i see the new patch in action, because it could all be subject to change very soon.
If for example memory management becomes better and the game swaps textures in and out of vRAM in a more efficient manner, it could be possible for everyone to up their texture settings one notch without having to buy a new GPU. In such an example my Ati 4890 1GB would probably be able to run high textures and 1.5GB cards might be able to run original size textures, with no additional money spent.
Another example, getting a 64 bit executable would allow us to use more RAM which would in turn allow the sim to load more textures in there, so instead of having to access the hard drive every time the GPU wanted a set of textures, it would access the RAM which is much faster. Buying an extra bank of DDR3 sticks to double RAM from 3-4 GB to 6-8GB (depending on triple/dual channel configurations) is much cheaper than a new GPU.
I think it's one of those times that it's best for us all to wait