GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 36 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 42%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5200 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a lot (more or less 182%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8000 (182%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past 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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate is also dependant on many 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.