Radeon HD 3650 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is a lot (more or less 769%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.