GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory works at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is much (more or less 171%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (171%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (29%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.