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GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 550 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 850 MHz on this card. It features 96 SPUs along with 32 TAUs and 8 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 70 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 106 Watts
Difference: 36 Watts (51%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should theoretically perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 54400 MB/sec
Difference: 3200 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 will be quite a bit (about 42%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 5200 (42%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should be much (about 182%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB 12400 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 4400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 8000 (182%)

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.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3870 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 GT 240 GDDR5 Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Novermber 2009 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name GT215 RV670 XT
Memory 512 MB 512 MB
Core Speed 550 MHz 775 MHz
Memory Speed 3400 MHz 1800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 70 watts 106 watts
Bandwidth 54400 MB/sec 57600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 17600 Mtexels/sec 12400 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 4400 Mpixels/sec 12400 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 96 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 289 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.2 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GT 240 GDDR5

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3870 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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