GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 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 GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 should theoretically be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is much (approximately 205%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (205%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3800 (31%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.