GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which features a core clock frequency of 725 MHz and a DDR2 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (221%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 480 will be 593% quicker than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 151808 (593%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be much (about 624%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36200 (624%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30700 (1059%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.