GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 27%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (27%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16800 (175%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.