GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 725 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should theoretically be just a bit better than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be quite a bit (about 93%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 512MB is a little bit (about 4%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.