GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (89%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be quite a bit (about 152%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18800 (152%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 SE is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8400 (68%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a 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 - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.