GeForce GT 430 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which comes with a clock speed of 725 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GT 430 is 13% faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 will be much (approximately 93%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3650 256MB is the winner, but only just. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.