GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which features a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 X2, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 950 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 256 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is much (approximately 130%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27776 (130%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 950 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11392 (53%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.