GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM set to run at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (35%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 8640 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be much (approximately 99%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12224 (99%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a lot (approximately 21%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2140 (21%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.