GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 X2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
	Difference: 22144 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is a lot (more or less 112%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23984 (112%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is much (more or less 21%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4544 (21%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.