GeForce GTX 980M vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specs 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 features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 101504 (383%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M is a lot (more or less 832%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 88960 (832%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M is quite a bit (about 522%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3690/3830, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 55744 (522%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.