GeForce GTX 660 Ti vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 1126 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should in theory be just a bit better than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti is quite a bit (about 288%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76080 (288%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be just a bit (more or less 20%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4440 (20%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.