GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which comes with clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 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 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3650 512MB should be a little bit faster than the GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 is a lot (approximately 49%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3 is quite a bit (about 49%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 1GB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1420 (49%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 get to the maximum fill rate.