GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should in theory perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be quite a bit (more or less 214%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a small bit (about 11%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1088 (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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.