GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which features a core clock frequency of 825 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1126 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is 12% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be a lot (more or less 72%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18960 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is just a bit (more or less 2%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 560, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 480 (2%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per 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 speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.