GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 828 MHz on this specific model. 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)

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 will be 231% faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall, because of its greater data rate. (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 should be much (about 21%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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 running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, by a large margin. (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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out 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 applied in one second.

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