GeForce 9800 GTX vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GTX should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 40000 (132%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be a lot (more or less 1250%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40000 (1250%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GTX will be much (about 238%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7600 (238%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, 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 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.