GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 3 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8600 GTS should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS should be much (about 86%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5000 (86%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS is a lot (approximately 86%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3650, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2500 (86%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.