GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The DDR2 RAM works at a speed of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 166 Watts (213%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166784 (652%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit (approximately 752%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43608 (752%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34156 (1178%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.