Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which features a GPU core clock speed of 725 MHz, and 256 MB of DDR2 RAM set to run at 800 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should in theory be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB is a lot (about 81%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (81%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3470 256MB should be a little bit (more or less 10%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 300 (10%)

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 across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.