GeForce 9800 GX2 vs Radeon HD 5450

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5450		19 Watts
GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
	Difference: 178 Watts (937%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 9800 GX2 should be 900% quicker than the Radeon HD 5450 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5450		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (900%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 is a lot (more or less 1377%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5450. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		5200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71600 (1377%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be a lot (about 638%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5450, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5450		2600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16600 (638%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.