GeForce GT 315 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which has 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) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 315		52 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 23 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 315 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
GeForce GT 315		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 1216 (5%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a bit (approximately 7%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 315. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 315		10000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 688 (7%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 315		5000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5688 (114%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs 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 rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.