GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be 10% quicker than the GeForce GTX 970M in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 9984 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is quite a bit (about 246%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52544 (246%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (approximately 107%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22976 (107%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range 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 clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.