GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) should theoretically be a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3690/3830 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
	Difference: 2304 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) is a small bit (about 5%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 512 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing 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 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7888 (282%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.