GeForce GTX 570 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also uses 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 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121600 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 should be a lot (approximately 1273%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40720 (1273%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 570 is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.