GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which features core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should in theory be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB will be a lot (more or less 214%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.