GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 5670

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5670, which has GPU core speed of 775 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 400(80x5) SPUs, 20 TAUs, and 8 Raster Operation Units.

(No game benchmarks for this combination yet.)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5670		61 Watts
GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 5670 should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5670		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 6272 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 should be quite a bit (about 62%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 5670. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		15500 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9556 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be a lot (more or less 102%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5670, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5670		6200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6328 (102%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of 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.