GeForce GT 450 (OEM) vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which has a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory speed of 1125 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is made up of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) will be 33% quicker than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		96000 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 24000 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 450 (OEM) should be much (about 53%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6560 (53%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GT 450 (OEM) is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 450 (OEM)		18960 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6560 (53%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.