GeForce GTS 150 vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 63 Watts (81%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 150 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 is quite a bit (approximately 717%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41560 (717%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 150 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8940 (308%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.