GeForce 7900 GT vs ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP

Place in the ranking	1081	1183
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	1.02	0.96
Architecture	TeraScale (2005−2013)	Curie (2003−2013)
GPU code name	RV670	G71
Market segment	Desktop	Desktop
Release date	3 January 2008 (16 years ago)	9 March 2006 (18 years ago)

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	320	no data
Core clock speed	668 MHz	450 MHz
Number of transistors	666 million	278 million
Manufacturing process technology	55 nm	90 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	48 Watt
Texture fill rate	10.69	10.80
Floating-point processing power	0.4275 TFLOPS	no data
ROPs	16	16
TMUs	16	24

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	AGP 8x	PCIe 1.0 x16
Width	1-slot	1-slot
Supplementary power connectors	1x 8-pin	1x 6-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	512 MB	256 MB
Memory bus width	256 Bit	256 Bit
Memory clock speed	828 MHz	660 MHz
Memory bandwidth	52.99 GB/s	42.24 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

API compatibility

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

DirectX	10.1 (10_1)	9.0c (9_3)
Shader Model	4.1	3.0
OpenGL	3.3	2.1
OpenCL	N/A	N/A
Vulkan	N/A	N/A

Synthetic benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark results comparison. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

ATI HD 3850 AGP 1.12
+67.2%

7900 GT 0.67

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

ATI HD 3850 AGP 432
+67.4%

7900 GT 258

Gaming performance

Let's see how good the compared graphics cards are for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in FPS.

Pros & cons summary

Performance score	1.12	0.67
Recency	3 January 2008	9 March 2006
Maximum RAM amount	512 MB	256 MB
Chip lithography	55 nm	90 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	75 Watt	48 Watt

ATI HD 3850 AGP has a 67.2% higher aggregate performance score, an age advantage of 1 year, a 100% higher maximum VRAM amount, and a 63.6% more advanced lithography process.

7900 GT, on the other hand, has 56.3% lower power consumption.

The Radeon HD 3850 AGP is our recommended choice as it beats the GeForce 7900 GT in performance tests.

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