GeForce GTX 660 Ti vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should be much (more or less 288%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 76080 (288%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4440 (20%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.