GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which comes with a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1050 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		106 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 6870 is 40% quicker than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (40%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 will be much (more or less 166%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31440 (166%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 6870 is superior to the GeForce GT 450 (OEM), by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9840 (52%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.