Radeon HD 3850 256MB vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific model. It features 160 SPUs as well as 8 Texture Address Units and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		31 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB is 84% faster than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 24192 (84%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a lot (approximately 78%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		6000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4688 (78%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 256MB is quite a bit (approximately 256%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		3000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7688 (256%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.