GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 48384 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be a bit (approximately 3%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 576 (3%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be quite a bit (about 106%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10976 (106%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.