GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 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

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should perform a small 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 (approximately 214%) faster with regards to 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 (more or less 11%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.