GeForce GTX 880M vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 880M		130 Watts
	Difference: 24 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 880M should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M will be much (approximately 885%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		122112 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109712 (885%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 880M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 880M		30528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18128 (146%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.