GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 120384 (167%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (about 298%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus 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 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen 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 amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 max fill rate.