GeForce GT 420 vs Radeon HD 3650 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3650 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 725 MHz. The DDR2 RAM is set to run at a frequency 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 GT 420		50 Watts
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		78 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (56%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 420 should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3650 256MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3650 256MB		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (13%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB will be a small bit (about 4%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		5800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 200 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3650 256MB is just a bit (about 4%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 3650 256MB		2900 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are applied 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 this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.