GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which has a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 55808 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be a lot (approximately 241%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25712 (241%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10112 (95%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

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