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GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB makes use of a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 648 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1242 MHz on this card. It features 240 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 825 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 1126 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB should theoretically be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB 158976 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 144128 MB/sec
Difference: 14848 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB should be quite a bit (about 96%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB 51840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 25440 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB should be quite a bit (about 27%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 26400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB 20736 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 5664 (27%)

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 285 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

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 285 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year January 15, 2009 Jan 28, 2008
Code Name G200b R680
Memory 1024 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 648 MHz 825 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 2484 MHz 2252 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 204 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 158976 MB/sec 144128 MB/sec
Texel Rate 51840 Mtexels/sec 26400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 20736 Mpixels/sec 26400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 240 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 80 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 32 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR4
Bus Width 512-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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 285 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB

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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