GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which features a clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1126 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be 125% quicker than the GeForce GTX 960M overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80128 (125%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (more or less 66%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17440 (66%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be much (more or less 51%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 960M, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8864 (51%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB 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 the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its 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 the core speed of the card. 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.