GeForce 820M vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 820M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M is much (about 260%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8304 (260%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 256MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 324 (11%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.