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

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

In theory, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should be a small 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 is a lot (approximately 21%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is the winner, and very much so. (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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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