Switch GPU vs ATI Radeon HD 3850

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Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking1104not rated
Place by popularitynot in top-100not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation0.04no data
Power efficiency0.93no data
ArchitectureTeraScale (2005−2013)Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019)
GPU code nameRV670GM20B
Market segmentDesktopLaptop
Release date19 November 2007 (17 years ago)17 March 2017 (7 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$179 no data

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

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 cores320256
Core clock speed668 MHz384 MHz
Boost clock speedno data768 MHz
Number of transistors666 million2,000 million
Manufacturing process technology55 nm20 nm
Power consumption (TDP)75 Watt15 Watt
Texture fill rate10.6912.29
Floating-point processing power0.4275 TFLOPS0.3932 TFLOPS
ROPs168
TMUs1616

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).

InterfacePCIe 2.0 x16IGP
Length208 mmno data
Width1-slotno data
Supplementary power connectors1x 6-pinNone

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 typeGDDR3DDR4
Maximum RAM amount1 GB4 GB
Memory bus width256 Bit64 Bit
Memory clock speed830 MHz1600 MHz
Memory bandwidth53.12 GB/s25.6 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 Connectors2x DVI, 1x S-VideoNo outputs

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX10.1 (10_1)12 (12_1)
Shader Model4.16.4
OpenGL3.34.6
OpenCLN/A1.2
VulkanN/A1.1.126
CUDA-5.3

Pros & cons summary


Recency 19 November 2007 17 March 2017
Maximum RAM amount 1 GB 4 GB
Chip lithography 55 nm 20 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 75 Watt 15 Watt

Switch GPU has an age advantage of 9 years, a 300% higher maximum VRAM amount, a 175% more advanced lithography process, and 400% lower power consumption.

We couldn't decide between Radeon HD 3850 and Switch GPU. We've got no test results to judge.

Be aware that Radeon HD 3850 is a desktop card while Switch GPU is a notebook one.


Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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ATI Radeon HD 3850
Radeon HD 3850
NVIDIA Switch GPU
Switch GPU

Comparisons with similar GPUs

We selected several comparisons of graphics cards with performance close to those reviewed, providing you with more options to consider.

Community ratings

Here you can see the user ratings of the compared graphics cards, as well as rate them yourself.


3.4 206 votes

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4.1 147 votes

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Questions & comments

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