Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon HD 5970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 5970, which features a clock frequency of 725 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1600 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
Radeon HD 5970		294 Watts
	Difference: 216 Watts (277%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 5970, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		256000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 230400 (900%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be quite a bit (about 3900%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		232000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 226200 (3900%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 5970 should be much (approximately 3100%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 5970		92800 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 89900 (3100%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.