Radeon HD 3690/3830 vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 240, which features a clock frequency of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 320 SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon R7 240 should be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 2304 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R7 240 is quite a bit (approximately 37%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3912 (37%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4848 (83%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.