GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this model. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 650 should be 163% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (163%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 will be a lot (more or less 958%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30656 (958%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 650 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 most pixels the video 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 amount 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.