GeForce GTX 470 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which comes with GPU clock speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 140 Watts (187%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 107424 (405%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is much (approximately 218%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23304 (218%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 should be quite a bit (more or less 127%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13592 (127%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 processed per second.

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