GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6870, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this particular model. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
GeForce GTS 450		1453 points
	Difference: 1417 (98%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 6870 is 133% quicker than the GeForce GTS 450 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 76672 (133%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is much (approximately 101%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25344 (101%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6870 is quite a bit (more or less 130%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16272 (130%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.