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GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 1100 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should perform much faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+ 70400 MB/sec
Difference: 44800 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX+ will be much (about 79%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX+ 47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 20832 (79%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+ 11808 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 14592 (124%)

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 9800 GTX+

Amazon.com

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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.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9800 GTX+ Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2008 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name G92b R680
Memory 512 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 738 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 2200 MHz 1800 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 145 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 70400 MB/sec 115200 MB/sec
Texel Rate 47232 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 11808 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 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 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce 9800 GTX+

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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