GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		135 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (80%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		62080 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 9088 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) should be much (more or less 289%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		41600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30912 (289%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a small bit (approximately 3%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G92), and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92)		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 288 (3%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one 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. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.