GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 800 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory running at 950 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 40(8x5) Stream Processors, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 570, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be quite a bit (about 1273%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40720 (1273%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26080 (815%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. 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 fill 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 get to the max fill rate.