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GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

The GeForce 8600 GTS makes use of a 80 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 675 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 32 SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which has clock speeds of 668 MHz on the GPU, and 828 MHz on the 256 MB of GDDR3 memory. 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

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS, in theory, should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS 32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830 26496 MB/sec
Difference: 5504 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be just a bit (more or less 1%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS 10800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 112 (1%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a lot (approximately 98%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8600 GTS, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830 10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8600 GTS 5400 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 5288 (98%)

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

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GeForce 8600 GTS

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3690/3830

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce 8600 GTS Radeon HD 3690/3830
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year April 2007 2008
Code Name G84 RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 256 MB
Core Speed 675 MHz 668 MHz
Memory Speed 2000 MHz 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 75 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 32000 MB/sec 26496 MB/sec
Texel Rate 10800 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 5400 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 32 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 16 16
Render Output Units 8 16
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 128-bit
Fab Process 80 nm 55 nm
Transistors 289 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce 8600 GTS

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3690/3830

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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