GeForce GT 640 DDR3 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which features core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is 88% faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		57024 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 26624 (88%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is quite a bit (more or less 800%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		28800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25600 (800%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GT 640 DDR3 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 640 DDR3		14400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (350%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.