GeForce GTX 650 Ti vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which features GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory running at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 650 Ti		110 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti should be 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti should be much (approximately 379%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46992 (379%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti is a bit (about 20%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		14848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2448 (20%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.