Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (94%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6870 should in theory be a lot superior to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 108800 (425%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be much (approximately 769%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 44600 (769%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 should be quite a bit (more or less 893%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25900 (893%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.