GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 4870 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 57472 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 2GB is a small bit (approximately 20%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 2GB		30000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4944 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be a little bit (about 4%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 4870 2GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 2GB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 528 (4%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.