GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70528 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is quite a bit (approximately 266%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32960 (266%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is much (about 109%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13520 (109%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.