GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 512MB should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 will be quite a bit (approximately 175%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (175%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 will be a lot (approximately 38%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.