GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features 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.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB should theoretically be just a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 1GB is quite a bit (about 95%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10112 (95%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a small bit (approximately 3%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 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. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.