Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon R9 M290X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 M290X, which has GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
Radeon R9 M290X		100 Watts
	Difference: 22 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon R9 M290X should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		153600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 M290X will be a lot (approximately 1072%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		68000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62200 (1072%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 M290X is the winner, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 M290X		27200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24300 (838%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.