GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which features a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be a lot (approximately 254%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27112 (254%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5512 (52%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 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 colour ROPs by the the card's 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.