GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 in general. (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 a lot (about 21%) better 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

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 512MB is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.