GeForce GTX 650 Ti vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 650 Ti		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti will be quite a bit (more or less 456%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		59392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48704 (456%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 Ti should be much (more or less 39%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650 Ti		14848 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4160 (39%)

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

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.