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GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GTX has a clock speed of 675 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1100 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
GeForce 9800 GTX 140 Watts
Difference: 34 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9800 GTX should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX 70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be a lot (approximately 248%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX 43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 30800 (248%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 512MB is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX 10800 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1600 (15%)

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

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GeForce 9800 GTX

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9800 GTX Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2008 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name G92 RV670 XT
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 675 MHz 775 MHz
Memory Speed 2200 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 140 watts 106 watts
Bandwidth 70400 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 43200 Mtexels/sec 12400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 10800 Mpixels/sec 12400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 64 16
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses 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 better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9800 GTX

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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