GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM is set to run at a speed of 800 MHz on this particular card. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 119 Watts (153%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (400%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be quite a bit (approximately 1224%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71000 (1224%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 9800 GX2 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16300 (562%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.