GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 420 is 13% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 512MB should be a bit (about 4%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 512MB should be just a bit (approximately 4%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 100 (4%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.