GeForce GTS 450 vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 280, which uses a 65 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a speed of 1107 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (123%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 280 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTS 450 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 83968 (145%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be much (about 92%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23104 (92%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6736 (54%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.