Radeon HD 3870 1GB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5450, which has GPU core speed of 650 MHz, and 512 MB of DDR3 memory running at 800 MHz through a 64-bit bus. It also features 80(16x5) Stream Processors, 8 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 87 Watts (458%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 5450 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 59200 (463%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB will be much (about 138%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7200 (138%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB is a lot (more or less 377%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5450, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9800 (377%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.