GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 123 Watts (237%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 7870, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 315 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 128320 (508%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be much (more or less 700%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70000 (700%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7870 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27000 (540%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.