GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which has a clock speed of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 48256 (84%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be just a bit (about 17%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3680 (17%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 should be a lot (more or less 71%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8848 (71%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.