GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 650 should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 22400 (39%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is a lot (about 173%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21456 (173%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is a lot (about 37%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4528 (37%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.