GeForce GTX Titan Black vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX Titan Black		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX Titan Black should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX Titan Black		336000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 278400 (483%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX Titan Black should be much (about 1621%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX Titan Black		213360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200960 (1621%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX Titan Black should be a lot (more or less 244%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX Titan Black		42672 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30272 (244%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 maximum fill rate.