GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which has GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 48384 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 512MB is a lot (more or less 57%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12224 (57%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 X2 is superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11776 (123%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. 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 of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.