GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which features a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB should be 9% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 4608 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GT 1GB is much (about 214%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 512MB will be a little bit (about 11%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.