GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1126 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 285 2GB should theoretically be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
	Difference: 14848 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 96%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25440 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is a lot (approximately 27%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5664 (27%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.