GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this specific card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 will be quite a bit (more or less 305%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9760 (305%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 320 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1120 (35%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.