GeForce GT 320 vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 should in theory perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 1216 (5%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 320 is a lot (more or less 21%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3690/3830. (explain)

GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2272 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 will be much (about 147%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 320, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6368 (147%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.