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

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB will be a lot (more or less 379%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46992 (379%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB will be a little bit (about 20%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		14848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.