GeForce GTX 460 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 should be 63% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (63%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 will be much (about 254%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27112 (254%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 is much (more or less 52%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.