GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which comes with core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 RAM. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 is a lot (more or less 52%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3000 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1500 (52%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.