GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare 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 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (more or less 298%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37008 (298%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24656 (199%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the 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 clock 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.