GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 1 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is 25% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is a lot (more or less 171%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (171%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (29%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, 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 AA, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.