GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which features GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB will be 100% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is a lot (about 27%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be much (more or less 175%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (175%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high 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 number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.