GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with core clock speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be much (approximately 91%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (91%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB is much (about 282%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GT 420, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7888 (282%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.