GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
	Difference: 53120 (86%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be a lot (more or less 58%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15200 (58%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (154%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.