GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a frequency of 950 MHz on this card. It features 40(8x5) SPUs along with 4 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should be 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 is a lot (more or less 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

The GeForce GT 320 will be much (about 35%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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 megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total number 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.