GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 800 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a speed of 950 MHz on this particular model. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 will be much (more or less 305%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9760 (305%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 is a lot (approximately 35%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1120 (35%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of 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 output rate also depends 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.