GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5870, which features a clock speed of 850 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		106 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 82 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5870 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (60%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be quite a bit (more or less 259%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 450 (OEM). (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 49040 (259%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8240 (43%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

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