GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 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 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should in theory be much superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 55808 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is much (about 241%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25712 (241%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be much (more or less 95%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 better this number, the better the video card will be at 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 write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core 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 rate is also dependant on lots of 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.