Radeon HD 3650 512MB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6790, which comes with core speeds of 840 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
	Difference: 72 Watts (92%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6790 should theoretically be a lot better than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (425%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6790 is quite a bit (about 479%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27800 (479%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6790 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10540 (363%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.