GeForce GTX 480 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 set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 should be 208% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 119808 (208%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is a lot (more or less 239%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29600 (239%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is much (more or less 171%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21200 (171%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.