GeForce 820M vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 950 MHz on this specific card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3470 512MB is 90% quicker than the GeForce 820M in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14400 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 820M should be much (about 260%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 8304 (260%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 512MB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 324 (11%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.