GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (91%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should be 20% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 10368 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB will be quite a bit (approximately 130%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13936 (130%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB is a little bit (about 4%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 428 (4%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.