GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
	Difference: 68 Watts (91%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB should in theory be a little bit superior to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 10368 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB is much (more or less 130%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13936 (130%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3850 1GB is the winner, but not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that 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 amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.