GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 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)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 650 should in theory be much superior to 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%) faster with regards to 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 much (more or less 37%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen 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 speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.