GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should theoretically be a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 315 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 5120 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 will be a lot (about 213%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6800 (213%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 315 is quite a bit (more or less 56%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1800 (56%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.