Geforce GTX 670 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 950 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 40(8x5) Stream Processors, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 670 should be 532% faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		192000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 161600 (532%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 670 will be much (more or less 3103%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		102480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 99280 (3103%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 670 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 670		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26080 (815%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.