GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which has a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) will be just a bit (more or less 5%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 512 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be quite a bit (about 282%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 430 (OEM), and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.