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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB has a GPU core clock speed of 600 MHz, and the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 112 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which has core clock speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 105 Watts
Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB will be a lot (about 214%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be just a bit (approximately 11%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 9600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1088 (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

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GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 9800 GT 512MB Radeon HD 3850 256MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year July 2008 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name G92a/b RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 256 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz 668 MHz
Memory Speed 1800 MHz 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 105 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 57600 MB/sec 52992 MB/sec
Texel Rate 33600 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 9600 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 112 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 56 16
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 65/55 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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