GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 560 should in theory be much better 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 will be a lot (about 112%) better at 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 should be quite a bit (approximately 21%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.