GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3650, which features 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 is comprised of 120(24x5) Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 400% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (about 1224%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (approximately 562%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3650, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		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 megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.