GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 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 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70656 (123%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti should be a lot (more or less 324%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40208 (324%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13904 (112%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 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 video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.