GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (91%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 10368 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB will be a lot (about 130%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13936 (130%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB should be a bit (about 4%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 640MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 428 (4%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

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