GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM works at a frequency of 800 MHz on this card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 93%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 will be a bit (approximately 4%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.