GeForce GTX 965M vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which features core speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 46 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 1GB is 13% faster than the GeForce GTX 965M in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 8000 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M is much (approximately 387%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48016 (387%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M should be much (approximately 144%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17808 (144%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.