GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
	Difference: 34 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be a little bit better than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX should be much (more or less 248%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30800 (248%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be just a bit (about 15%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1600 (15%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.