Radeon HD 3470 256MB vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which features core speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3470 256MB should perform a small bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 81%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		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 (approximately 10%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.