GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which features a GPU core clock speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 X2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
	Difference: 86400 (82%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (approximately 131%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28032 (131%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (approximately 73%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15680 (73%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total 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 processed per second.

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