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GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 650 comes with clock speeds of 1058 MHz on the GPU, and 1250 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 384 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a speed of 1126 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 650 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 144128 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 650 80000 MB/sec
Difference: 64128 (80%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 will be quite a bit (more or less 28%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 7456 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 650 16928 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 9472 (56%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 650

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 650 Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2012 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name GK107 R680
Memory 1024 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 1058 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 5000 MHz 2252 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 64 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 80000 MB/sec 144128 MB/sec
Texel Rate 33856 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16928 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 384 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR4
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 28 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1300 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 11.0 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.3 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 650

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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