GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The DDR2 memory works at a speed of 800 MHz on this card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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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

The GeForce GT 430 should in theory perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (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 (about 93%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3650 256MB is the winner, though only just barely. (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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.