GeForce GTX 460 SE vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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, due to its higher data rate. (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 will be quite a bit (approximately 192%) better at anisotropic 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 is a lot (about 95%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.