GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is quite a bit (about 49%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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 512MB GDDR3 is superior to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.