Radeon HD 3650 256MB vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which has a GPU core clock speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 828 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should be a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 896 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a lot (approximately 84%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4888 (84%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3690/3830 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7788 (269%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.