GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 775 MHz on the GPU, and 1125 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
	Difference: 14 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 124608 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 774%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 96032 (774%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (about 483%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 59888 (483%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.