GeForce GT 430 1GB vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3650, which has a core clock speed of 725 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 800 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 120(24x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		60 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 18 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GT 430 1GB should theoretically be a bit better than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 430 1GB will be a lot (more or less 93%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce GT 430 1GB		11200 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5400 (93%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 will be a bit (about 4%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430 1GB		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 largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.