GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 725 MHz. The GDDR4 memory runs at a speed of 800 MHz on this model. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GTS should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be much (about 86%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5000 (86%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be much (about 86%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2500 (86%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.