GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 1126 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57728 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB will be a lot (more or less 125%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32992 (125%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB will be a lot (more or less 78%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		14848 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11552 (78%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.