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GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB has core speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a speed of 828 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be 84% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (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 should be just a bit (more or less 17%) better at 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 will be quite a bit (more or less 71%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (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

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GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Amazon.com

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Radeon HD 3850 X2

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 1GB Radeon HD 3850 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year September 2010 Apr 4, 2008
Code Name GF106 RV670 PRO
Memory 1024 MB 512 MB (x2)
Core Speed 783 MHz 668 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 3608 MHz 1656 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 106 watts (Unknown) watts
Bandwidth 57728 MB/sec 105984 MB/sec
Texel Rate 25056 Mtexels/sec 21376 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 12528 Mpixels/sec 21376 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 320(64x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 32 16 (x2)
Render Output Units 16 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR3
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 1170 million (Unknown) million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16/(internal PCIe 1.1 x16)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number 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 outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 3850 X2

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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