GeForce GTX 950M vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is 66% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 20992 (66%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (about 242%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25872 (242%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a lot (approximately 37%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3936 (37%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a 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 called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.