GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 950M should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 1600 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be much (more or less 1043%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33360 (1043%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950M is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11424 (357%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.