Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

The GeForce 9800 GX2 makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 600 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which has a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB 75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2 197 Watts
Difference: 122 Watts (163%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 75008 (142%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (about 619%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 66112 (619%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (about 80%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2 19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 8512 (80%)

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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 512MB

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.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model GeForce 9800 GX2 Radeon HD 3850 512MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year Mar 2008 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name G92 RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB (x2) 512 MB
Core Speed 600 MHz (x2) 668 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz (x2) 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 197 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 128000 MB/sec 52992 MB/sec
Texel Rate 76800 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 19200 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 128 (x2) 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 64 (x2) 16
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 55 nm
Transistors 754 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 9800 GX2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 512MB

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.

Comments

Be the first to leave a comment!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield