GeForce GTX 650 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 650		64 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 11 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 650 should be 51% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		80000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 27008 (51%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 650 will be much (approximately 217%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		33856 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23168 (217%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 650 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 650		16928 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6240 (58%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill 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.