GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 950 MHz on this card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GTX will be 132% faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 40000 (132%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is much (more or less 1250%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (1250%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX is quite a bit (about 238%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (238%)

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 transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.