GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which comes with core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 950 MHz on the 256 MB of DDR2 memory. It features 40(8x5) SPUs as well as 4 TAUs and 4 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTS 450 1GB should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 27328 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 683%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21856 (683%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 1GB should be quite a bit (about 292%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9328 (292%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number 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 Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.