GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which features GPU clock speed of 668 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (225%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 139392 (263%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (approximately 362%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38720 (362%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (about 247%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26368 (247%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR 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 number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.