GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4480 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) is quite a bit (more or less 235%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29200 (235%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be a small bit (about 19%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2000 (19%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.