GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 55808 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be a lot (more or less 241%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25712 (241%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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