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GeForce GTX 260 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 features a clock frequency of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 999 MHz. It also makes use of a 448-bit bus, and makes use of a 65 nm design. It is comprised of 192 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 260 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 X2 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 111888 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2 105984 MB/sec
Difference: 5904 (6%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 260 will be a lot (about 72%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 15488 (72%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 is quite a bit (about 33%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2 21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 16128 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 5248 (33%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 X2

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 Radeon HD 3850 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year June 16, 2008 Apr 4, 2008
Code Name G200 RV670 PRO
Memory 896 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 576 MHz 668 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 1656 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 105984 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 21376 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 21376 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 28 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 448-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1400 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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