GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units 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 650 Ti 2GB		110 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB is a lot (about 379%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46992 (379%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB is superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB		14848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.