GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 650 should be 163% faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (163%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 should be a lot (about 958%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30656 (958%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 is a lot (approximately 429%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13728 (429%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.