GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5450, which has a clock frequency of 650 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 800 MHz. It also uses a 64-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 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 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		47 Watts
	Difference: 28 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 will be 75% quicker than the Radeon HD 5450 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		22400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (75%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 should be quite a bit (more or less 66%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		8640 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3440 (66%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3 is superior to the Radeon HD 5450, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce 8600 GT 512MB GDDR3		4320 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1720 (66%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.