GeForce 9800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular model. 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)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should theoretically be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 512MB should be much (about 214%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a little bit (more or less 11%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GT 512MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1088 (11%)

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 moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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