GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 68096 (224%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be quite a bit (about 800%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25600 (800%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (575%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.