GeForce GTX 880M vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which features a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, 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 in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 880M is a lot (about 885%) faster with regards to texture filtering 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

The GeForce GTX 880M will be quite a bit (more or less 146%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.