GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 430 should be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 should be much (approximately 93%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB is a small bit (approximately 4%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.