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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm features a clock frequency of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 999 MHz. It also uses a 448-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 216 SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 825 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 111888 MB/sec
Difference: 3312 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is a lot (more or less 57%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 41472 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 15072 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be a lot (approximately 64%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm 16128 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 10272 (64%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 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 GTX 260 216SP 55 nm Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year December 22, 2008 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name G200b R680
Memory 896 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 576 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 171 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 41472 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 216 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 72 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 28 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1400 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 in a second.

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

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 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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