GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce GTX 965M in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be quite a bit (more or less 387%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48016 (387%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M will be much (about 144%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17808 (144%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.