GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which has a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be much better than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 75136 (142%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 is quite a bit (approximately 324%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34672 (324%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 will be much (about 143%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15232 (143%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.