GeForce GTX 850M vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 850M overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 20992 (66%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 850M will be quite a bit (more or less 228%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24352 (228%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 850M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3328 (31%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.