GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically be a bit superior to the GeForce GT 315 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 is a lot (about 213%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (213%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 should be a lot (approximately 56%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (56%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.