Radeon HD 3650 512MB vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6970, which features core speeds of 880 MHz on the GPU, and 1375 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (221%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6970 will be 588% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 150400 (588%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 is much (approximately 1357%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78680 (1357%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6970 will be quite a bit (more or less 871%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25260 (871%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.