GeForce GTX 970 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which comes with a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 197504 (745%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a lot (about 922%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 98512 (922%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be much (about 529%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56512 (529%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.