GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be 9% faster than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be much (approximately 95%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10112 (95%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should be a bit (more or less 3%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.