GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator 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 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is 89% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be a lot (approximately 194%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24000 (194%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (more or less 68%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.