GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 49 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTX is 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX should be quite a bit (more or less 197%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be a bit (approximately 11%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1400 (11%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card 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 ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.