GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should perform a bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 will be a lot (approximately 305%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9760 (305%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 320 is superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1120 (35%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.