GeForce GTX 870M vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 32 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 870M should perform quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (275%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (about 1717%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 99592 (1717%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be a lot (more or less 679%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19684 (679%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video 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 number of colour ROPs 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.