GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM is set to run at a speed of 950 MHz on this particular card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980M should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 97600 (321%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be quite a bit (approximately 3014%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 96448 (3014%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 63232 (1976%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.