GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 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 570		219 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 570 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 94400 (164%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be a lot (about 254%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31520 (254%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16880 (136%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, 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 amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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