ATI Radeon HD 3850 X3 vs GeForce 8800 GTS 640
Primary details
GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.
| Place in the ranking | not rated | not rated |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | not in top-100 |
| Architecture | Tesla (2006−2010) | TeraScale (2005−2013) |
| GPU code name | G80 | RV670 |
| Market segment | Desktop | Desktop |
| Release date | 8 November 2006 (18 years ago) | no data |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $449 | no data |
Detailed specifications
General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.
| Pipelines / CUDA cores | 96 | 320 |
| Core clock speed | 513 MHz | 669 MHz |
| Number of transistors | 681 million | 666 million |
| Manufacturing process technology | 90 nm | 55 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 143 Watt | 145 Watt |
| Texture fill rate | 24.62 | 10.70 |
| Floating-point processing power | 0.2281 TFLOPS | no data |
| ROPs | 20 | 16 |
| TMUs | 24 | 16 |
Form factor & compatibility
Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | PCIe 1.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
| Length | 267 mm | 292 mm |
| Width | 2-slot | 2-slot |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin | 1x 8-pin |
VRAM capacity and type
Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.
| Memory type | GDDR3 | GDDR3 |
| Maximum RAM amount | 640 MB | 512 MB |
| Memory bus width | 320 Bit | 256 Bit |
| Memory clock speed | 792 MHz | 1700 MBps |
| Memory bandwidth | 63.36 GB/s | 54.4 GB/s |
Connectivity and outputs
Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.
| Display Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x S-Video | 4x DVI |
API compatibility
List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.
| DirectX | 11.1 (10_0) | 10.1 (10_1) |
| Shader Model | 4.0 | 4.1 |
| OpenGL | 3.3 | 3.3 (full) 4.0 (partial) |
| OpenCL | 1.1 | N/A |
| Vulkan | N/A | N/A |
| CUDA | + | - |
Pros & cons summary
| Maximum RAM amount | 640 MB | 512 MB |
| Chip lithography | 90 nm | 55 nm |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 143 Watt | 145 Watt |
8800 GTS 640 has a 25% higher maximum VRAM amount, and 1.4% lower power consumption.
ATI HD 3850 X3, on the other hand, has a 63.6% more advanced lithography process.
We couldn't decide between GeForce 8800 GTS 640 and Radeon HD 3850 X3. We've got no test results to judge.
Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.
Comparisons with similar GPUs
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