GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB is a lot (about 379%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46992 (379%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB will be just a bit (about 20%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		14848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2448 (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.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.