GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970M should in theory be much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is quite a bit (about 496%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61520 (496%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be much (about 258%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31952 (258%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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