GeForce 8600 GTS vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5450, which features a core clock speed of 650 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also makes use of a 64-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 80(16x5) SPUs, 8 TAUs, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 8600 GTS		75 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (295%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce 8600 GTS should theoretically be much faster than the Radeon HD 5450 overall. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		32000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (150%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GTS will be a lot (about 108%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		10800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5600 (108%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GTS is superior to the Radeon HD 5450, by far. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GTS		5400 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2800 (108%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could 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 - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.