GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 103520 (341%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be a lot (more or less 962%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30792 (962%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21080 (659%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.