GeForce GTX 970M vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 828 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970M should theoretically be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 43008 (81%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (about 592%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63232 (592%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be a lot (more or less 315%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33664 (315%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.