GeForce 8800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 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 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GT 1GB is a lot (more or less 214%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB is a little bit (about 11%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 1GB		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 data (in units of MB 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 memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.