GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 160 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)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		31 Watts
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 16 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB should in theory be much superior to the GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		28800 MB/sec
GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 is quite a bit (about 44%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		6000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2640 (44%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 should be quite a bit (more or less 44%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6450 (OEM) 1GB		3000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1320 (44%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number 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 speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.