GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 800 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 950 MHz on this specific model. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 97600 (321%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is much (more or less 2300%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 73600 (2300%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (more or less 500%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16000 (500%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.