GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 828 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should be 105% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 55808 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE is much (about 192%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20512 (192%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 SE will be much (more or less 95%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10112 (95%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.