GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 120(24x5) Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform exactly the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 is quite a bit (approximately 52%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1500 (52%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.