GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which comes with a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, 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 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 72000 (272%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be much (more or less 169%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18112 (169%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is superior to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the 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 memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.