GeForce GTX 750 vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 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 750		55 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 750 should theoretically perform a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 750 will be a lot (about 163%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		32640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20240 (163%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 750 is much (approximately 32%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		16320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3920 (32%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.