GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5450, which has a clock speed of 650 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5450 overall. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (350%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a lot (more or less 300%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15600 (300%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9600 GT 512MB will be a lot (approximately 300%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5450, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7800 (300%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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