GeForce GT 430 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3650 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB, which has a clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GT 430 (OEM) should theoretically be just a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3650 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 (OEM) will be much (more or less 93%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 512MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3650 512MB is the winner, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 512MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 (OEM)		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 100 (4%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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.