GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a speed of 950 MHz on this model. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should in theory perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 should be quite a bit (approximately 175%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (175%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1200 (38%)

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 past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.