GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 860M, which has a GPU core clock speed of 797 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 1152 Stream Processors, 96 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (136%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 860M, in theory, should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 6272 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be quite a bit (more or less 205%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 51456 (205%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 224 (2%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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