GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, 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 makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 41984 (66%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is a lot (more or less 105%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22464 (105%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be a lot (more or less 22%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 960M, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (22%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.