GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 7870, which makes use of a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1200 MHz on this particular model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 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 7870		175 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (65%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7870 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 95872 (166%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is a lot (approximately 219%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54944 (219%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 is a lot (more or less 155%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19472 (155%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.