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GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 950M uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 914 MHz. The DDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M 55 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 51 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 950M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M 32000 MB/sec
Difference: 25600 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (approximately 195%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M 36560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 24160 (195%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M 14624 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 2224 (18%)

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

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GeForce GTX 950M

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 950M Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year March 12 2015 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name GM107 RV670 XT
Memory 2048 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 914 MHz 775 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 55 watts 106 watts
Bandwidth 32000 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36560 Mtexels/sec 12400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 14624 Mpixels/sec 12400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 640 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 40 16
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type DDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 28 nm 55 nm
Transistors (Unknown) million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 12 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 950M

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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