GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features 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)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 36992 (231%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB is much (about 21%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1888 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be a lot (more or less 143%) better at AA than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6288 (143%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.