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GeForce GTS 450 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

The GeForce GTS 450 makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 902 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB 75 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 106 Watts
Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 450 should be 9% quicker than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 57728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 52992 MB/sec
Difference: 4736 (9%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 will be a lot (about 134%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 14368 (134%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 should be a little bit (about 17%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB 10688 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 1840 (17%)

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

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GeForce GTS 450

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTS 450 Radeon HD 3850 256MB
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 Nov 19, 2007
Code Name GF106 RV670 PRO
Memory 512 MB 256 MB
Core Speed 783 MHz 668 MHz
Memory Speed 3608 MHz 1656 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts 75 watts
Bandwidth 57728 MB/sec 52992 MB/sec
Texel Rate 25056 Mtexels/sec 10688 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12528 Mpixels/sec 10688 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 320(64x5)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16
Render Output Units 16 16
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1170 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/AGP 8x
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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

Display Prices

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GeForce GTS 450

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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