GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7970, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 925 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1375 MHz on this card. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 144 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7970 should be 357% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 206272 (357%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7970 should be a lot (more or less 373%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 93344 (373%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 7970 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17072 (136%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.