Geforce GTX 690 vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 690 is 234% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 269312 (234%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 will be much (more or less 787%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 207840 (787%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 690 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32160 (122%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.