GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is 13% quicker than the GeForce GTX 965M in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M is quite a bit (approximately 387%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48016 (387%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17808 (144%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.