GeForce 8800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 memory set to run at 1125 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 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 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 49 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 8800 GTX should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is quite a bit (about 197%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24400 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX is a small bit (more or less 11%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1400 (11%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.