GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which features GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 memory set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 120(24x5) Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (153%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 9800 GX2, in theory, should perform much faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (more or less 1224%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71000 (1224%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16300 (562%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total texture units 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 can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.