GeForce GTX 465 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. 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 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 465		200 Watts
	Difference: 125 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 465 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		102592 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 49600 (94%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 465 should be a lot (more or less 150%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		26708 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 16020 (150%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 465 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 465		19424 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8736 (82%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of 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, 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 by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.