GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 175 Watts (233%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 150912 (570%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (more or less 293%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31312 (293%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22912 (214%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.