GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which features core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. 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)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3650 256MB is 14% faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should be a lot (more or less 49%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (49%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1420 (49%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.