GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB is 105% quicker than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		54400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 27904 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB should be a lot (approximately 65%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		17600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6912 (65%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 should be a lot (approximately 143%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 240 GDDR5 1GB		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6288 (143%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.