GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3650, which comes with GPU core speed of 725 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR4 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 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 512MB DDR2		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3650 should be much faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is a lot (about 49%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (49%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB DDR2		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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.