GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 828 MHz on this card. 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 512MB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should in theory be a little bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 8192 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB should be a lot (more or less 214%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB is a little bit (about 11%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.