GeForce GTX 560 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which features GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 560 should theoretically be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3850 X2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
	Difference: 22144 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 should be much (about 112%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23984 (112%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 560 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4544 (21%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.