Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), which has a core clock frequency of 625 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also features a 64-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 160 SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be 800% quicker than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 102400 (800%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB should be quite a bit (approximately 428%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		5000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21400 (428%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB is superior to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM), by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM)		2500 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23900 (956%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.