Radeon HD 3690/3830 vs Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 4670 512MB should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 5504 (21%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4670 512MB will be quite a bit (approximately 125%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13312 (125%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is superior to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4688 (78%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.