Radeon HD 3650 512MB vs Radeon HD 3690/3830

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3690/3830, which has a core clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 828 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, 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 512MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 3690/3830 should in theory be a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		26496 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 896 (4%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 is much (about 84%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4888 (84%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3690/3830 should be a lot (about 269%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3690/3830		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.