GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should in theory be a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (2%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be a lot (approximately 281%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34832 (281%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a bit (approximately 5%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 592 (5%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.