GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1400 MHz on this model. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs 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 R9 270		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon R9 270 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		179200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 121472 (210%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 is a lot (about 187%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46944 (187%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the Radeon R9 270 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16272 (130%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.