GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 900 MHz on this card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs 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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 570 should be 164% faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is a lot (approximately 254%) more effective 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 a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, 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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.