GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is 9% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is a lot (about 214%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB is a small bit (more or less 11%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.