GeForce GTX 660 Ti vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should be quite a bit (about 726%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90080 (726%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti should be much (more or less 77%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9560 (77%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.