GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB is 117% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 62208 (117%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be a lot (about 254%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27112 (254%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should be quite a bit (approximately 102%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10912 (102%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.