GeForce GTX 960M vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 950 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 960M, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 33600 (111%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be much (more or less 1270%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40640 (1270%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be much (about 448%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14336 (448%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.