GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which features a core clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 896 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 will be quite a bit (approximately 21%) better at AF than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1888 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 will be much (more or less 143%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6288 (143%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.