Radeon HD 3470 512MB vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The DDR2 memory is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this specific card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3470 512MB should in theory be a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 4800 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB will be much (about 81%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2600 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3470 512MB is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 512MB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.