GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which has core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. 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 GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be a lot (more or less 91%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (91%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be quite a bit (about 282%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7888 (282%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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.