GeForce GTX 480 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which has clock speeds of 725 MHz on the GPU, and 800 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 120(24x5) SPUs as well as 8 TAUs and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 172 Watts (221%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 480 should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 151808 (593%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 is much (more or less 624%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36200 (624%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30700 (1059%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.