GeForce 820M vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which has a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3470 512MB will be 90% faster than the GeForce 820M overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M should be a lot (about 260%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8304 (260%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 512MB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.