GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which uses 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 model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (127%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 75264 (142%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti will be quite a bit (about 392%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41920 (392%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15616 (146%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.