GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 17408 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be quite a bit (about 342%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36544 (342%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1120 (10%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.