GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM running at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3650 should be 14% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 is much (more or less 49%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 should be much (about 49%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.