GeForce GTX 750 vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 750		55 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 51 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 750 will be 11% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 750 is much (more or less 163%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		32640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20240 (163%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 750 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 750		16320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3920 (32%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.