GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a speed of 1126 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		144128 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73728 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be a lot (approximately 64%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (64%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB will be much (about 144%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.