GeForce GTX 950 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with core speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be 0% faster than the GeForce GTX 950 in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 256 (0%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 should be quite a bit (approximately 130%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27776 (130%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 will be much (approximately 53%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 X2, and able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11392 (53%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.