GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should theoretically be a little bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be a lot (approximately 235%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29200 (235%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be a little bit (about 19%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (19%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.