GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which comes with a GPU core 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) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (225%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 165888 (626%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (about 362%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38720 (362%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (about 247%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26368 (247%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.