GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 480 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 147008 (484%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (approximately 1213%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38800 (1213%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30400 (950%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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