GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 3650

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3650, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 725 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 800 MHz on this model. It features 120(24x5) SPUs along with 8 Texture Address Units and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
Radeon HD 3650		78 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (66%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3650 should be 14% quicker than the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650		25600 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 will be much (about 49%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3650. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		5800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2840 (49%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is much (more or less 49%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 3650, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3650		2900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1420 (49%)

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 past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.