GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be much (approximately 205%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25400 (205%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9200 (74%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.