GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which features GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 828 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 1216 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 is much (about 21%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2272 (21%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6368 (147%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.