GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB is much (about 91%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (91%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.