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

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than 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) should be quite a bit (approximately 241%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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) will be much (about 95%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across 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 type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.