GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 will be 484% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 147008 (484%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (about 1213%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38800 (1213%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (more or less 950%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30400 (950%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.