GeForce GTX 460 2GB 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 frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 88704 (335%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is a lot (about 254%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27112 (254%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB is much (about 102%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10912 (102%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that are 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 the texel rate, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.