GeForce GTX 1070 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which features a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1070 will be 147% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 X2 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1070		262144 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
	Difference: 156160 (147%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1070 will be a lot (more or less 745%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1070		180720 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 159344 (745%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1070 is much (about 351%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1070		96384 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 75008 (351%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.